Production of organic compost for Agaricus bisporus

The increased demand for organic foods has increased the need for organic compost for the cultivation of Agaricus bisporus. The traditional ingredients for Dutch compost production are horse and chicken manures and wheat straw. These ingredients are not sufficiently abundant in organic form in The Netherlands and, therefore, we evaluated other available and affordable materials for the preparation of organic-grade mushroom compost. The composition of the ingredients and their ease of handling and mixing were important considerations in the selection process. Mushroom production trials were carried out with several compost formulations that had been subjected to conventional Phase I and II composting. We found that the processing parameters used for traditional compost production were not always applicable for composting other substrate mixtures. However, the results of our experiments identified several promising materials, which potentially could increase the availability of compost for organic mushroom production