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Abstract: About three years ago we ventured into a research program which we call "the analysis of the composting process." The final purpose is to prepare a synthetic compost, adapted to conditions and requirements in Holland. To this end, we need a better understanding of composting. Up to now, composting including the production of synthetic composts, has been carried out on a more or less empirical basis. At the present time we use straw as the source of inorganic nitrogen and minerals. We follow the M.R.A. formula, Edwards (3a), and aim at a selective medium, containing a maximum of "special food" for the mushroom. This means that the growth of the mushroom mycelium —and in the future also the yield of mushrooms—is and will be, our final criterion for the quality of our preparations. Figure 1 shows the arrangement of our experiments. Sinden and Häuser (12, 13) conducted similar experiments with horse manure. Unfortunately they do not give enough data and it was not possible to repeat their experiments exactly in the same way. They used 5 and 30 ml of air per minute in somewhat smaller jars than ours, but did not give the amount of compost per jar. We regulated our air flow so that the oxygen content never gets less than 8%. With 300 g compost of 68% moisture in 3.3 L jars, the optimum aeration is around 12 ml per minute. Since composting is a very complex process, the progress in this kind of investigations is slow. Due to several circumstances in our new laboratory, our progress has been extremely slow for the first three years. I regret that I cannot give any extraordinary results, however, I may be able to present—here and there—different approaches to the problems involved.
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