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Abstract: The quality of a mushroom compost depends on: The nature and quality of the basic materials; the organic and inorganic supplements; the management of the compost during composting in which water plays an important role. In this paper the only criterion for the quality of a compost is the yield. In the past most investigators have tried to improve compost by the addition of inorganic and organic materials. Gerrits showed that the nature of the organic supplements is not very important, but that the total amount of organic matter given with various materials and the C:N ratio in the organic matter is of decisive importance for a good compost. The amount of organic matter for an optimum result varies from horse manure to horse manure and it is difficult to determine the optimum amount for each batch of manure. Bech & Riber Rasmussen (Mushroom Science 1) calculate their supplements per ton of dry matter and consequently eliminate the strongly variable moisture content of horse manure. But the composition of the dry matter itself is also very variable, because of the amount and composition of the droppings and urine in the horse manure. To eliminate these factors one should find a method for analysing the dry matter in order to determine its quality. As yet this is impossible because of the heterogeneous nature of horse manure which makes sampling extremely difficult and because the composition of fresh horse manure for an optimum result is unknown.
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