Mushroom Pests And Diseases

There are many pests and diseases, which affect mushrooms but the best way to stop most of these is by prevention rather than cure. If the compost made to grow the mushrooms is produced by straw and manure along with water and time the resultant heat emissions in the production will kill most of the bugs and diseases.

Care should be taken to get good mushroom stock and to make sure that all the casings are all pure and that the handling and treatment is all carried out with the best possible practice and hygiene is immaculate so that problems are not introduced in the first place.

The problems can be from parasitic insects, the sciarid fly which lays its eggs at the base of the mushroom and they tunnel up the stalk restricting the growth of the mushroom. The phorid fly tends to lay its eggs around the mushroom and the larvae burrow all the way into the cap. The flies can also spread the parasitic verticillium from plant to plant. This will cause deformity and can ruin a crop. There is a limited pesticide control that can be applied but care must be taken as this is applied in proximity to the edible product. It can be better to remove the mushrooms and compost from the affected area.

There are some bacterial diseases and some fungal diseases. Bacterial blotch can hurt a crop particularly in larger production and is usually caused by the caps getting and remaining wet during a watering or misting of the crop. It can be controlled by a drier atmosphere but it can be a severely damaging problem.

There are several other diseases which can thrive and the best way to get rid of the problem is to remove the product and clean every part of the area and start again.

Also see our section on How To Grow Mushrooms

By Richard Allen -