About Us
Select Soils is a division of its parent, Kaolin Mushroom Farms, Inc and has the unique responsibility of continuing the recycling processes of its parent mushroom farming operation.
We feel that undertaking an environmentally responsible approach should begin at the inception of the process, which begins with the importation of re-cycled agricultural products from various other farming operations. The process starts at our Alpine Farm division. Alpine is the location of our fresh mushroom composting and baling facility.
The 1st step of the recycling process occurs when the raw materials necessary to grow a mushroom crop are imported to the farm to mix and blend in order to create a specific and necessary formula of compost substrate, the growing medium in which the mushroom grow. We then take the mixture and fill our state of the art, European, indoor tunnel composting system. Select Soils was the first, and still the only company in America to implement this European technology.
The tunnel system is an indoor, environmentally controlled, “closed loop” process where the composting of the raw materials for mushroom growing takes place. The compost goes through two phases. The initial structural degradation of the raw materials (straw, hay, corncobs, gypsum, cottonseed meal, poultry litter, and cocoa shells) is referred to as the fermentation process. This takes place in our Phase 1 area. After fermentation, the compost is then pasteurized in what we call our Phase II process. After seven days in Phase II, the compost is transported to the mushroom growing rooms where it will begin the eight-week cycle of the mushroom production.
It is also very important to know that our “closed loop” process
re-circulates, back into the compost, the leachate from these materials, eliminating any run-off to the streams, lakes, or aquifers and additionally reduces the need for ground water consumption. The collected waste water / leachate is placed into a large holding tank where it is aerated to reduce anaerobic emissions and then continuously recycled into the composting process. At this point of the process, a nutrient rich, microbial laden growing medium is ready to produce mushrooms to be harvested for the sales around the nation.