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Abstract: The findings of Schisler and Sinden on 'shake-up spawning' could be confirmed. Information was collected on the relation between compost quality and utilization of supplements. As a rule it is easier to prepare and peakheat a compost which is low in nitrogen, resulting in a quality with excellent spawn growth but giving a rather low yield. Temperature control in such a compost is much easier both during spawn run and after shake-up spawning, its activity depends almost entirely on the spawn itself and not on other microbes. In the experiments a 'rich' (with much nitrogen) and a 'meagre' compost (with little or no supplementation of nitrogen) were compared. The supplements added at shake-up spawning were much better utilized in the latter compost in some cases 2 kg of cotton seed meal in a meagre compost resulted in an increase of about 10 kg of mushrooms. The author concludes that – on a commercial farm – all, or part of the organic nitrogen supplements might be omitted during outside composting, they are often expensive and sometimes troublesome, they may be incorporated at shake-up spawning. Other experiments showed that supplements incorporated after the 2nd and 4th flush, and even after the 8th and the 9th flush, further increase yield. Supplementing during cropping can easily be done in a strip of the bed (e.g. 25% of its width) that is left uncased. The technique of the shake-up spawning with supplementation is perhaps the cheapest way to increase mushrooms production. It has to be worked out further, a o in connection with the various problems turning up under commercial application.
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