Innovation out of necessity

Poland has some 2,500 mushroom growers, but there are significant differences in production methods and cultivation techniques among the various companies. In the area around Poznan one can see lots of small one or two-shed farms dotted among the houses.
Jaroslaw Górny owns a 3,000 square metre mushroom farm in Czempiñ, 30 kilometres to the south west of Poznan, and he has recently procured a second farm of 2000 square metres in Mosina. This makes him one of the larger growers in this area, and one who likes to look to the future.

By Roel Dreve

Jaroslaw Górny got married on the mushroom farm. His father in law made a good living from it. “With his 500 square metre farm he lived a more carefree life than we do now. In fact, the actual sizes of single rooms on our company is no less than 500 square metres now!”, says the cheerful grower. An extra room was built as a wedding gift and when Górny took on the company on his own, he expanded it again.

After this, good times were quickly followed by bad times and vice versa. “We had an entire month without mushrooms once! Something had to be done and that is why we decided to go and look around in Western Europe, where we bought compost from Verschoor. My colleagues thought that the high costs were going to ruin me, but although I stopped using this compost after some months, the good results I achieved with it enabled me to leave my financial problems behind me.”

The new compost also brought cultivation advisers and improved growing techniques to the company, which became one of the first Polish farms to modernize. Górny continues: ”The difference is that we are willing to listen, and remain inquisitive, where lots of others (including compost companies) cannot or do not want to do that. But I had no choice: I had to innovate!”

Compost from Belgium

By now production stands at some 32 kilos per square metre and the weekly production is about 25 tons, which is mostly supplied to Banken Poland in Rakoniewice. Górny uses a six-week schedule and harvests three flushes. He uses compost as casing material which he does not ruffle. Blowing down is done after six days. In summer he doses more water, ‘because I want the mushrooms to grow more deeply’.

The grower has recently started to import phase III compost from Coenegrachts in Riemst, Belgium. According to Górny this compost is no less than three times as expensive as Polish phase II compost, but nevertheless foreign compost is increasingly used in Poland.

He buys his casing soil from Bio-Mycel. “There are plenty of casing soil suppliers and we have tried several, but Bio-Mycel supplies a very good product. When our company started using better compost we got water problems with the home-made casing soil we had been using. This made it necessary for us to switch over to another.”

Problems for growers

Górny thinks that lots of Polish growers show too little innovating spirit and are too reluctant to try. “Most growers do not really know what mushroom cultivation is all about, and I fear that those who fail to learn about the latest techniques will not survive for much longer.” He himself regularly consults advisers from Sylvan and Coenegrachts, attends small-scale study groups and regularly visits fairs such as the Dutch Mushroom Days to get new information.

But not only ‘know how’ is a problem for Polish growers. Górny says the main problem is in the increasingly higher costs which are hard to cover for many of his colleagues.

As regards pests and diseases, the grower has noted an increasing occurrence of Virus X in his country. He personally has few problems with this but he feels that cultivation problems mainly occur with colleagues who do not have good hygienic standards, a quite common impediment to good results in Poland. “My neighbours occasionally have dry and wet bulb in the third flush, but actually this rarely occurs in this area. Actually”, he remarks with a grin on his face, “you really have a problem if you have no problems at all.”

Górny also finds it hard to get good pickers. “Morale among Polish workers is a problem, as is the availability of workers. We use vans to collect our pickers over a large area and this is a serious problem for growers throughout the country.”

Finally, what is his opinion of his country joining the EU? “I was already in the EU!” the grower laughs. “I was getting my compost there and I was selling my mushrooms into the EU even before we were admitted.” He thinks that some players in the Polish market were not too happy about where he was getting his compost. “When it became apparent that compost supplies from the West were crossing the border, there suddenly came an end to the rapid transit at the borders for some time...”