Re-invigorating Old Beds.
There is a wide-spread impression
among horticulturists that worn out beds which have
ceased to bear may, by means of watering and certain
stimulants and warming up again, be so re-invigorated
as to start into full bearing, and yield a second
and a good crop. I have given this question much
painstaking and practical consideration, and have
absolutely failed to revive a “dead” bed.
I have not been able to do it myself, and any instance
of its having been done has never come under my observation.
This may appear heresy anent the multitudinous writings
to the contrary.
A mushroom bed may keep on bearing
in a desultory way for many months, and now and again
show spurts of increased fertility; but this is no
second crop; it is merely a prolonged dribbling of
the first crop. A bed, by reason of cold or dryness,
may, as it were, stand still or partially stop bearing,
and soon after it is remoistened, warmed, and otherwise
submitted to congenial conditions, will display renewed
energy; but this is no second crop; it is merely a
spurt of the first crop caused by extra favorable
cultural conditions. But to show how vaguely
this question which is so much written about is regarded,
let me quote from a letter to me by Mr. J. Barter,
who grows 21,000 lbs of mushrooms a year for the London
market: “You ask me, ’Do you ever
get a second crop?’ My beds last in bearing,
on an average, each three months, and that I reckon
to be three crops. But whether it be three or
six months, the weight of mushrooms is about the same.
As there is in, say a ton of manure, only so much
mushroom-producing power, if you force it to produce
that weight in two months you are a gainer, as you
thereby save in labor; but when that producing-power
is exhausted it will produce no more mushrooms.”
A spent mushroom bed is one that has
been kept in bearing condition under the most favorable
circumstances at our command, and it has borne a good
crop, lasted some two months in bearing, and now it
has stopped bearing (except in a meagerly, desultory
way) because the spawn or mycelium has exhausted itself
and is dead. Then, without living spawn in the
bed how are we to get mushrooms? Some bits of
mycelium are still alive and yield the desultory few,
but every mushroom that they yield is preying on their
vitality, and after a time they too shall die and the
bed be completely barren, for the mycelium is altogether
dead, and without mycelium mushrooms are an impossibility.
We can keep mushroom mycelium in active growth the
year round, and year after year, providing we never
let it bear mushrooms. This is done by taking
the mycelium, just before it begins bearing, from
one manure bed and plant it in another, and so on
from bed to bed. At every fresh transplanting
the mycelium exerts itself into renewed growth, for
it must become a strong plant before it has strength
enough to produce and support a mushroom. Our
utmost efforts have never rendered mycelium in a mushroom-bearing
condition perennial.