It is hoped that this article may provide food for thought and provide a degree of amusement, the latter increasingly becoming something of a rarity within the UK mushroom business.
In 1928, Fleming's most famous discovery began as an accident: While working on influenza virus, he observed that mould had developed accidentally on a staphylococcus culture plate and that the mould had created a bacteria-free circle around itself. He was inspired to further experiment and he found that a mould culture prevented growth of staphylococci, even when diluted 800 times. He named the active substance penicillin. Alternatively, he may have simply muttered annoyance that the plate had suffered a similar fate to that of last week’s cheese sandwich and thrown the plate away. He and the world would have been much the poorer.
I do not suggest that fame, fortune or Nobel Prizes are there to be fortuitously won by opportunistic investigation of occasional adventitious cultural occurrences. I do however suggest that sometimes, advantage may be obtained by careful consideration of an oddity when it occurs as opposed to reacting in a dismissive or perfunctory manner.
As an aside, the reader may at this point conclude that the author has been enjoying too many episodes of “Jeeves & Wooster”, a most edifying example of an uncommon but occasional meritorious production from our modern public entertainment provider; television. This conclusion does have some validity but the reader is asked to be understanding, not only in appreciation of the educational benefit of etymological excursion (how else would one learn words such as “post-prandial” or “priapismic”?) but also due to the fact that the author needs to pad out the article somehow.
Recently I visited a grower who produces a few Arvensis in bags along with his conventional mushrooms. The Arvensis crop reasonably OK but flushes are not that heavy and could be better. At end of crop the bags are closed and sealed with a wire tie thus safely stored prior to disposal. I was amused to note that the Arvensis subsequently produced superb flushes outside in the yard! I suggested that there was something to be learnt here and stressed that the grower should investigate. Obviously the environment in the sealed bags was not detrimental. Perhaps the colder temperatures outside were the key factor. The grower could have simply dismissed this as odd but forgettable. Instead, he would experiment with temperature and see if in-house results could be improve.
I thus argue that all growers should give due attention to oddities as they occur, not only when they are negative but also when they can be positive. For example, consider patterns of disease or unusually good yields and then ask “Why?”.
Finally, I visited a grower who used to grow oyster mushrooms along with his conventional whites and browns. He has not grown oysters for 2 years. His hygiene regime is good, including the disinfection of his arcade and growing room doors. So, what does the photo say?:
There has recently been a healthy crop of marketable quality oysters to the side of the growing room doors.
a) Are spores (whatever the variety of mushroom) far more durable than we think?
b) Is the hygiene program not as good as we thought?
c) Should we wonder how Virus X can stubbornly persist on a farm?
d) Is there a possibility of an oyster substrate based on a recipe of PUVC door frames and breeze blocks? If so, should we be checking out the waste material pile at our nearest Builders Merchant?
