How do you prevent and treat black spots on the caps of button mushrooms?

The button mushroom (Agaricus bisporus) is the white mushroom, common mushroom or cultivated mushroom that we see fairly often in daily life. It is grown all over the world and is especially suited to being stewed into soup. When growing button mushrooms, poor management can easily lead to black spots appearing on the caps, generally caused by infection with wet bubble disease or brown spot disease bacteria, so how should it be prevented and treated?

1. Control methods for wet bubble disease

Symptoms: If button mushrooms are infected with wet bubble disease, the fairly common symptom is that the mushrooms produce a mass of deformed tissue. In the early stage of the disease, the mushroom bodies have a white fluffy appearance, and as the button mushrooms grow they gradually rot and turn brown. If the environment is very hot and very humid, the diseased tissue of the button mushrooms changes from amber to dark brown small droplets, then gradually invades the interior of the button mushrooms, causing the whole mushroom house to give off a rotten stench. If the mushroom bodies are infected with this pathogen in the later stage of growth, the disease only appears at the base of the stipe, turning brown and then growing white fluffy mycelium, and the entire cap develops brown spots.

Control methods: First, disinfection measures must be carried out well inside the button mushroom house. Because these types of diseases are very easily contracted during mushroom cultivation, the floors, walls, shelves and other places where the pathogen spores hide must be thoroughly cleaned and disinfected. When new material enters the mushroom house, if the humidity and temperature are fairly suitable, a new source of contamination will appear. Therefore, the fertilizer in the mushroom house must be cleared away, the mushroom house washed down, and fumigation, ventilation, etc. carried out.

Second, this pathogen very likely comes from the soil, so attention must be paid to the procedure when taking soil, which must be uncontaminated.

Third, the button mushroom house should be kept ventilated at ordinary times. Reducing the temperature difference between day and night and appropriately lowering the humidity and temperature can effectively prevent the occurrence of this type of disease.

2. Bacterial blotch

Bacterial blotch is a fairly common disease during mushroom cultivation, because in a high-humidity, high-temperature environment the spread of this disease is accelerated, posing a fairly large threat to the quality and yield of button mushrooms.

Button mushroom blotch is caused by a pathogen present in the air, soil, compost and water, so once this type of disease occurs, dark brown lesions appear on the caps of the button mushrooms. In the early stage of the disease the color is fairly pale, and as time goes on the lesions gradually turn dark brown. In severe cases the areas where the spot symptoms occur split open, causing the button mushrooms to become deformed.

Control methods: First, the humidity inside the mushroom house should be lowered a little and ventilation increased.

Second, if infection with this pathogen occurs, the right remedy must be applied immediately to bring the disease under control.

Third, do a good job of cleaning and disinfecting inside the mushroom house.