Eng-Leong Foo wrote: >=20 > Thank you very much for the info on aging time needed and nutrient = flow for compost (in general) in soil and the interesting phenomenon of = slow release over the years. In an integrated system where mushrooms are = grown (e.g. using bran, brewery spent grain and saw dust), I believe = that one or more food chain steps could be used before going for = composting. This way we could get one or more products/uses before = getting a compost. The options are: (a) grow earthworms (b) feed the = spent substrate to >=20 > Could someone who might have some experience, comment on these options = ? >=20 > Are there any literature references (specific for mushroom spent = substrate) that looked at the nutrient flows from spent substrate to = e.g. earthworms (during vermicompost), ruminants and compost? Hi Jackie, The best technical report on earthworm culture I am aware of is = "Earthworms in Environmental and Waste Management" by Drs. Clive Edwards = and Ed Neuhauser 1988 SBP Publishers, The Hauge, Netherlands. In it are = numerous scientific papers on the subjects of vermiculture, = vermistabilization, and vermicomposting as well as papers on the role of = earthworms as a protein source and as an indicator of biological = contamination. Dr. Edwards is the chair of the Sustainable Agriculture = Program at The Ohio State University and is also an excellent source for = information on the role of terrestrial invertebrates in various = ecosystems. His best example of an integrated biosystem was of a site he visited in = the Phillippines in the mid 1980s while researching the earthworm = perionyx excavatus which is native, I believe, to the islands there. He = visited a farm that was on a hill where discarded food products from a = city were fed to pigs; the pig manure was washed downhill to earthworm = beds after which the surplus worms were fed to geese that lived in a = pond where the liquid run-off was captured that also fed water plants = that fed ducks. The worm castings were harvested into intensive gardens = and the final water was discharged into rice paddies that also grew = carp. Regarding spent mushroom compost as an earthworm feed, my experience = based on working nine years at a mushroom farm in Colorado was that the = mushrooms were direct competitors with the worms for nutrients and that = [27 lines left ... full text available at <url:http://www.reference.com/cgi-bin/pn/go?choice=message&table=04_1997&mid=4353378&hilit=CULTURE+FUTURES> ] -------------------------------- Article-ID: 04_1997&4352844 Score: 78 Subject: The Dramatic Vision of August Wilson