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Re: mushroom compost

We had a large mushroom growing operation in this area for many years and unlike the description at the website you gave, they used horse manure. They made arrangements with horse owners in the area to trade straw for the manure, which allowed the grower to insure that the manure contained the kind of straw used in the mushroom compost instead of sawdust, which was the other common horse bedding material in the area. At that time, at least, there was heavy pesticide use to control fungus gnats in the mushroom growing beds.
-Lon Rombough
Grapes, writing, consulting, my book, The Grape Grower, at http://www.bunchgrapes.com Winner of the Garden Writers Association "Best Talent in Writing" award for 2003.
On Feb 22, 2005, at 5:48 AM, Pat Meadows wrote:

On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 06:51:16 -0500, you wrote:


http://www.americanmushroom.org/compost.htm

Note that they say "With SMC [spent mushroom compost] there
need be no concern about heavy metals or pesticides since
the compost ingredients have very low levels of heavy
metals. Mushroom farmers have used integrated pest
management practices for decades and pesticides are rarely
used on mushroom crops."

I note that the source is perhaps not totally disinterested,
but unless they are flat-out lying (which I would tend to
doubt), it does appear that mushroom growing practices have
changed drastically for the better since the 70s.

The mushrooms are, after all, sold for human consumption so
hopefully there is some regulation of the type and amount of
pesticides, etc., used. 
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