First of all, the total schedule of the farm is one of the most important issues to create a good third flush. If you want to create a third flush like you see in the movie, you will see that the first and second flush were also nice.. How to create these sort of flushes?

Of course a good compost is important, but unfortunately, it is not possible to have a 100% compost year-round. So if you want to have good third flushes year-round, you have to create time to let the compost recover if it is not 100% good. That means that it needs time. I have seen many facilities at which the compost was cased already after 12-13 days, or sometimes earlier. I suggest a minimum of 14 days, but 16 or 17 days is even better.

After casing it is also a matter of time. Of course the quality of casing is important. It can’t be too fine, I like ‘blocks’ or lumps of casing soil form more ore less than 1,5-2 cm. When you have a mycelium run into the casing of 5-6 days, you can create - with watering and a compost temperature of 25-26oC - a very good, strong, thick mycelium in the casing soil. With this kind of mycelium you can create a soft casing soil, which will take easy water during the first and second flush, to keep the casing soft for the third one as well.

Also, the temperature during growing out of the third flush has to be low. I prefer an air temperature of 16°C degrees. It will take more time to get the third flush, instead of 9 days, it will take 10 or 11 days to harvest the total third flush. That’s logical, because the total growth is older, and how older live is, how slower it will react.

I have seen farms who changed their schedule and had a double production and better quality of the third flush.

It goes without saying, that hygiene on the farm is also important to prevent pests and diseases in the third flush.

Mark den Ouden

mark.den.ouden@cpoint.nl