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Abstract: since the time of the first Congress at Peterborough, but the essential materials used for the growth of the crop have remained unchanged. At that time growing was done mainly on shelves and natural ventilation largely took care of the conditions within the house. There has been a gradual speeding up of crop production over the years so that at the present time the first Ib/sq ft is picked in 8-10 days or even less as against 20-25 days at that time. This speeding up of production could well be associated with shorter composting times and a highly aerobic fermentation during the final stages of compost preparation. This increase in activity has increased the rate of carbon dioxide production and also the amount of water produced within the beds themselves. Thus increasing attention has been given to the environment within the house and to the improvement of growing conditions. The most marked change in recent years has been the trend towards the use of greater quantities of finished compost per sq ft of bed area. At the time when fish boxes were being widely used for mushroom production 10-12 lb of compost per sq ft were common but at the present time weights of up to 22 lb per sq ft are not unusual. This quantity of compost results in higher bed temperatures and this reduces the need for supplementary heating to maintain an even temperature in the growing chamber. An early estimate by Edwards and Storey (1951) was that approximately 1/4 oz of water and 60 BTUs were produced per sq ft of bed per day. With higher bed temperatures and greater quantities of compost this rate will increase at least 2-3 times (Tschierpe and Sinden, 1962). Thus cooling and evaporation of water have become important aspects of mushroom growing. The object of this present study was to see whether changes in the pattern of production on mushroom farms could be related to the increasing quantities of compost used.
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