How to prevent and control edible mushroom diseases? Practical tips shared

Winter and spring are the golden periods for cultivating edible mushrooms. During this time, due to factors such as materials and environmental disinfection, diseases often occur, affecting the yield and profitability of edible mushrooms. Based on experience, mastering the following techniques is very important.

Focus on the treatment of the growing substrate and casing soil

The pathogens of various edible mushroom diseases mostly exist in the growing substrate and casing soil materials. Therefore, except for fermented substrate cultivation, especially in disease-affected areas and old mushroom sheds, cooked substrate cultivation should be used as much as possible. In the practice of oyster mushroom cultivation, yellow blotch disease has occurred widely in recent years and shows a trend of serious development, but cooked substrate cultivation has basically caused no harm.

Vigorously carry out site and environmental disinfection

Many pathogens naturally exist on the soil surface, in the air and on various organisms, especially on the inner walls and bed frames of old mushroom houses, where pathogens from the previous production season remain. **The simple and economical method for the environment and site is to expose them to the sun. The mushroom shed roof can be lifted off, first sunning the ground, then deep plowing, then sunning again. Formaldehyde, peracetic acid, sulfur, bleaching powder, etc. are also good environmental disinfectants, and they cause no pollution.

Harvest mushrooms first, then apply chemicals

When using them for prevention and control, if mushrooms are not harvested first, the chemicals can easily contaminate the mushroom bodies and cause large amounts of residue. Therefore, when using chemical control, mushrooms must be harvested first and chemicals applied afterward. After application, the mushroom house should be managed on the dry side to inhibit the formation of fruiting body primordia. The fungicides currently used generally have a residual period of about 14 days, and most edible mushroom fruiting bodies take about 7 days from primordium formation to mature harvest. Therefore, mushrooms can only be harvested 8 days after application.