Just glancing back at the end of 1986 one can see how things have changed.
Back then in the November 1986 issue of The Mushroom People a group of northern mushroom people had just been over to Holland to investigate the Dutch Shelf system of growing.
Patrick Kernan, Peter Connolly, Patsy Daly and Patsy Gildernew had visited a Dutch Shelf Farm hosted by Johann Hoving - who took them on a complete tour of the then current Dutch system, from composting yard to growing houses.
As Patsy Gildernew reported: “ The houses were automatically filled, cased and emptied, and were very labour-saving to say the least.” He also noted that for Irish growers to convert to the shelf system would be very expensive, as the cost of one of the houses was estimated at £ 3,500, plus the expense of the filling equipment.
