Symptom Identification of Several Major Diseases of Oyster Mushrooms

(1) White rot: The pathogen is Mycogone perniciosa, which harms the fruiting bodies. After the mushroom bodies are contaminated, it causes rot and produces a putrid odor.

(2) Brown spot disease: The pathogen is Verticillium fungicola. After its spores infect the fruiting bodies of oyster mushrooms, brown spots first form on the caps, gradually expand, and produce grayish-white depressions. After the mushroom bodies are damaged, they become deformed, and the stipes become swollen or curved, but they do not rot, and finally dry up and die.

(3) Mucor soft rot: The pathogen is Mucor. It generally occurs when the fruiting bodies are fully mature but not harvested in time, and the mushroom house is also under conditions of high temperature and humidity or the bed surface has standing water for a long time. The affected fruiting bodies show pale yellow or light brown water-soaked soft rot, generally starting from the base of the stipe, and finally causing the entire fruiting body to become water-soaked and soft-rotted, with a slippery surface and no putrid odor.

(4) Oyster mushroom malformation disease: It is a physiological disease. It occurs under conditions of poor ventilation, high carbon dioxide concentration, or insufficient light. After the fruiting bodies differentiate, their development is poor, often showing long stipes, small caps or even no caps, or "V"-shaped mushrooms. Deformities caused by viruses also occur, in which the stipe swells into a nearly spherical or flask shape, and finally the mushroom body shrinks, becomes spongy, and dies.

(5) Young mushroom shrinkage and drying disease: It is caused by physiological water deficiency and excessively low relative air humidity. The young mushrooms grow thin and weak, shrink and die from the top downward, and the fruiting bodies become wrinkled and shrunken.