Archiwum
- Index
- J. Michael Bishop How to Win the Nobel Prize, An Unexpected Life in Science (2003)
- Montgomery Lucy Maud Okruchy śÂ›wiatśÂ‚a
- Barrett Gail Naleśźć™ do Ciebie
- Binchy Maeve Szklane jezioro
- 31 Przewóznik
- Dena Garson [Emerald Isle Fantasies 03] Ghostly Persuasion [EC Twilight] (pdf)
- Barwick_James_ _CieśÂ„_wilka...a
- Howard Robert E. Bogowie Bal Sagoth
- Crymsyn Hart [Devil's Tavern 04] Seduction [Aspen] (pdf)
- Edigey Jerzy Najgorszy jest poniedzialek
- zanotowane.pl
- doc.pisz.pl
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- stemplofil.keep.pl
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beds with a crowbar is the common way of reducing a too high temperature, and when the heat has subsided
sufficiently fill up these holes with finely pulverized dry loam. With loam we can fill them up perfectly, but
we can not do this with manure, and if left open they remain as wet sweat holes that are very deleterious to the
spreading spawn.
A too high temperature in the beds should be sedulously guarded against, for it wastes the substance of the
manure, dries up the interior of the bed, and the mushroom crop must necessarily be starved and short.
Provided that the manure is fresh and good and has been well prepared, if the beds, after being made up, do
not indicate more than 100° or 110° no alarm need be felt, for excellent crops will likely be produced by these
beds. The thicker the beds are the higher the heat will probably rise in them. Firmly built beds warm up more
slowly than do loosely built ones, and they keep their heat longer. If the materials are quite cool when built
solidly into beds they are not apt to become very warm afterward. But I always like to make up the beds with
CHAPTER IX. 53
moderately warm manure.
It sometimes happens that circumstances may prevent the making up of the beds just as soon as the manure is
in prime condition, and even after they are made up the heat does not rise above 75° or 80°. In such a case if
the manure is otherwise in good condition and fresh, it is well enough and a good crop may be expected. But
if the manure, to begin with, had been a little stale, rotten and inert, I certainly would not hesitate to at once
break up the bed, add some fresh horse droppings to it, mix thoroughly, then make it up again. Or a fair heat
may be started in such a stale bed by sprinkling it over rather freely with urine from the barnyard, then forking
the surface over two or three inches deep and afterward compacting it slightly with the back of the fork.
Spread a layer of hay, straw, or strawy stable litter a few inches deep over the bed till the heat rises. If the
manure had been moist enough this sprinkling should not be resorted to, but the fresh droppings added
instead. When it is applied, however, great care should be taken to prevent overheating; a lessening or entire
removal of the strawy covering, and again firmly compacting the surface of the bed will reduce the
temperature. Some saltpeter, or nitrate of soda, an ounce to three gallons of liquid, will encourage the spread
of the mycelium after the spawn is inserted; a much stronger solution of these salts can now be used than
would be safe to apply after the mycelium is running in the bed.
When loam and manure mixed together comprise the materials of which the bed is made, the temperature is
not likely to rise so high as when manure alone is used, but this matters not so long as the materials of which
the bed is composed are sweet and fresh and not over-moist. But if the materials are cold and stale treat as
recommended for a manure bed, always bearing in mind that it is better to have a cold bed that is fairly dry
than one that is wet, or, indeed, a warm one that is wet.
Mr. Withington, of South Amboy, has a good word to say for beds of a low temperature. He writes me: "Our
beds kept in good bearing two months, though they have borne in a desultory way a month longer. Our best
bed this season was one that was kept at an even temperature. The manure never rose above 75° when made
up, and decreased to about 60° soon after spawning. Kept the house at 55°."
CHAPTER X. 54
CHAPTER X.
MUSHROOM SPAWN.
What is mushroom spawn? Is it a seed or a root? Do you plant it or sow it, or how do you prepare it? are some
of the questions asked me now and again. To the general public there seems to be some great mystery
surrounding this spawn question; in fact, it appears to be the chief enigma connected with
mushroom-growing. Now, the truth is, there is no mystery at all about the matter. What practical mushroom
growers call spawn, botanists term mycelium.
The spawn is the true mushroom plant and permeates the ground, manure, or other material in which it may be
growing; and what we know as mushrooms is the fruit of the mushroom plant. The spawn is represented by a
delicate white mold-like network of whitish threads which traverse the soil or manure. Under favorable
circumstances it grows and spreads rapidly, and in due time produces fruit, or mushrooms as we call them.
The mushrooms bear myriads of spores which are analogous to seeds, and these spores become diffused in the
atmosphere and fall upon the ground. It is reasonable to suppose that they are the origin of the spawn which
produces the natural mushrooms in the fields, also the spawn we find in manure heaps. But we never have
been able to produce spawn artificially from spores, or in other words, mushrooms have never been grown by
man, so far as I can find any authentic record, from "seed." How, then, do we get the spawn? By propagation
by division. We take the mushroom plant or spawn, as we call it, and break it up into pieces, and plant these
pieces separately in a prepared bed of manure or other material, under conditions favorable for their growth,
and we find that these pieces of spawn develop into vigorous plants that bear fruit (mushrooms) in about two
months from planting time. When the spawn has borne its full crop of fruit it dies.
Well, then, if we can not produce spawn from spores, and the spawn in the beds that have borne mushrooms
has died out, how are we to get the spawn for our future crops? is a question that may suggest itself to the
inexperienced. By securing it when it is in its most vigorous condition, which is before it begins to show signs
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