SPENT MUSHROOM COMPOST

Has anybody any info or thoughts on this compost. I've seen some as advertised as used once sterilized and recomposted before it leaves the farm it's sold as a soil conditioner although it also say's can be used to boost vegge's I wonder if it would be suitable for bag grown spuds.

 

Acting on the recommendation of our Zigs, I bought a load of the stuff a couple of years or so ago because my back garden was just severely depleted, compacted, red clay. Even weeds struggled to grow in it.

I dug the mushroom compost in, and now I have a garden. The first year I did it I grew spuds in one patch that had been enriched. I've grown spuds many, many times before so I know what sort of yield to expect for different soil conditions. The ones in the mushroom compost genuinely blew me away. Per plant, it was the greatest yield I've ever seen, by a significant margin.

 

Its great as a soil conditioner, although the mushrooms will have had a lot of the nutrients away its still better than not adding anything.

Don't think i've grown spuds in it, but I can't see why not,as it holds moisture well.

 

I used it once, bought a 'load'. As I recall, I had the best spuds ever Note to self:Get some in!

 

I had some a few years back and used it as a top dressing on the toms I was growing in big pots in the GH and also on the bed where I was growing my outdoor toms. Had a super crops of toms and also got a bonus of good few mushrooms.
Don't know if sterilised mushroom compost would still produce mushrooms though.

 

Think they only sterilise it to stop the bottom falling out of the mushroom growing industry.

When I worked on the mushroom farm I had hundreds of them coming up between the crops.

 

I had a trailer load delivered once.
Cant remember if it made much difference to the other plants but had a good crop of mushrooms in the autumn.
Is it not said to be Alkaline?
Spuds can get scab in alkaline soil?
Just thinking aloud, dont use all compost add some soil.

 

Pete, you could be right about the Alkaline thingy. Mine was added to open ground, and I can't say what the PH of the soil might have been. Hmm, the soil I have here is already Alkaline, think I'll give the Mushroom Compost a miss

 

Basically, when it arrives at the farm its bags of hot (tesco's?) horse poo with innoculated barley in it.

We added a casing mixture of peat & lime (which cancel each other out ph wise)

It shouldn't be any difference from normal farmyard manure.

 

I worked on a mushroom farm for 5 years. Typically you`d get 5 or perhaps 6 flushes before the blocks were completely spent, at which point there really isnt much goodness left.
The compost is steam sterilized before innoculation but not on the way out as its simply a waste product, we used to dump most of it on local farmers fields with a tractor and tipper trailer. The local gardeners couldnt cart away 40 tonnes a week

 

It wouldn't bother me to use it the once on alkaline soil that needed some heart adding - fastest way that I know of of doing that as manure etc. will take a few seasons of application (or you'll put so much on that the crops won't stand upright!!)

 

I used to to break up severely compacted clay. Clay is awful for becoming compacted, but it holds nutrients really well. Perhaps it was the combination of nutritious but packed clay mixed with nice well structured mushroom compost that made my tatties do so well.

 

But isn't farmyard manure usually acidic, in much the same way as garden compost, where lime has not been added?

 

The firms that made the mushroom compost blocks were pretty guarded about what went into them. The general consensus was a mixture of farmyard muck and river silt/mud amongst other stuff.