Detailed Explanation of Key Points for Integrated Pest Management in Edible Fungi

Edible fungi are a leading agricultural industry in Lishui City. The city's annual edible fungi output accounts for 1/3 of the national total, and the total output value of edible fungi accounts for about 45% of the city's total agricultural output value. However, with the continuous expansion of planting area and the increase in planting years, the harm caused by edible fungi pests has been worsening. In mild cases, it affects yield and quality; in severe cases, it causes total crop failure, seriously affecting edible fungi production. According to surveys, the main edible fungi pests in our city are mosquitoes and flies, moths, mites, and slugs, with the most severe occurrences in spring and autumn. The pest control practices accumulated over many years are introduced as follows:

1. Prevention First, Source Control

1.1 Site selection. Edible fungi culture rooms should be far from warehouses, livestock farms, garbage dumps, and other such places. For year-round edible fungi cultivation, a three-room system of inoculation, culture, and fruiting rooms is required. Inoculation rooms and culture rooms should be far from fruiting sites, and rooms facing south with good ventilation and dryness should be selected, with east-west orientation being optimal. No obstructions should be left in front of windows on the east and west sides, allowing full sunlight exposure.

Windows and doors should be fitted with screen mesh.

1.2 Site cleanup. Maintain good environmental sanitation at cultivation sites to prevent pest breeding. Old and new mushroom bags in cultivation rooms must be stored separately in different rooms and must never be mixed, to avoid disease and pest transmission from old bags to new ones. Cultivation tools should also be used separately. For open-field cultivation, remove residual plant material from the cultivation site and nearby dead branches, fallen leaves, rotting grass, bricks, stones, and tiles. When necessary, apply insecticides to the site. To prevent termites, dig bait pits or ring trenches.

1.3 Chemical prevention. For old cultivation rooms with severe disease incidence, fumigation and disinfection should be carried out. The method is to pour 80 mL of formalin into 40 g of potassium permanganate per cubic meter of volume for fumigation. The container holding the potassium permanganate should be deep, with a volume more than 10 times that of the formalin. During fumigation, seal the cultivation room. After 2 days, open doors and windows for ventilation for 24 hours before stacking the mushroom bags into the culture room. Sulfur fumigation can also be used at 5 g per cubic meter, sealed for 48 hours, and materials introduced 2 days later.

2. Tailored Measures, Agricultural Control

2.1 Trapping and killing. Use the positive tropism of pests for trapping and killing. For example, rapeseed cake is very effective for trapping mites. Take several pieces of gauze, sprinkle a layer of freshly roasted rapeseed cake powder on the gauze, and spread evenly on the mushroom shelves. Mites will gather on the gauze. Then soak the gauze in thick limewater, and the mites will be killed. Repeated several times, the mite control effect can reach over 90%. Where rapeseed cake is unavailable, cotton balls dipped in dichlorvos can be used for fumigation. Dip cotton balls in 50% dichlorvos and place them under the mushroom shelves at intervals of about 70 cm in a staggered arrangement, or hang them at one end of the mushroom bags, and cover the mushroom logs with wet gauze. When mites smell the chemical, they will emerge from the substrate and stick to the wet gauze. Then immerse the mite-covered wet gauze in thick limewater. Repeated several times, the mite control effect is very good. For pests with phototaxis such as mosquitoes and moths, black light lamps or energy-saving lamps can be used for trapping and killing. Place 0.1% dichlorvos in a water basin under the lamp, and pests will be killed upon falling into the basin. Alternatively, hang sticky insect boards in bright areas, coated with 40% polypropylene adhesive, with an effective period of up to 2 months.

2.2 Water immersion. When using the water immersion method for pest control, attention must be paid to ensuring that cultivation bags (blocks) are free of contamination and foreign microorganism blocks. For block cultivation, ensure that mycelium grows well in the blocks and that they will not disintegrate after 2-3 hours of soaking. Otherwise, the blocks will fall apart after water immersion. Although the purpose of eliminating pests is achieved, production efficiency will suffer losses. The procedure is as follows: For bottle and bag cultivation, pour water into the bottles or bags. For block cultivation, immerse the cultivation blocks in water and weigh them down with heavy objects so that the pests are submerged in water and deprived of oxygen. After soaking for 2-3 hours, the larvae will die and float up. After soaking, drain the bottles and bags and return them to their original positions.

2.3 Spot treatment. Actively carry out pest inspection work and eliminate pest outbreaks promptly. Some pests have special habits. For example, mushroom mosquito larvae have the habit of spinning silk, using silk to cover mushroom buds and living gregariously inside the web to cause damage. These pests can be captured manually. Gall midges have the habit of paedogenesis, with a single larva capable of reproducing more than 20 small larvae inside its body. Gall midges are small and afraid of dryness. Exposing infested mushroom bags to sunlight for 1-2 hours, or sprinkling lime powder, will cause the pests to die from dryness and reduce pest population density. In addition, some Lepidoptera larvae are very large and brightly colored after maturity, easily spotted during harvesting and management, and can be captured and eliminated at any time. Some larvae leave crawling trails, and you should follow the trails to find and capture them.

3. Close Monitoring, Chemical Control

Chemical use on edible fungi should be strictly controlled. Highly toxic and high-toxicity pesticides, as well as pesticides to which edible fungi are sensitive, are strictly prohibited to avoid pesticide residues and phytotoxicity to edible fungi, which would cause unnecessary losses. When chemical use is necessary, edible fungi should be harvested completely before application.

For mite damage, use 5 mL of 1.8% abamectin plus 10 mL of 3% acetamiprid or 10 mL of 10% imidacloprid for spraying or bag soaking. For spraying, dilute with 60 kg of water; for bag soaking, dilute with 120 kg of water. Before spraying, remove all mushroom bodies, then spray. For bag soaking, place the infested mushroom bags into the prepared solution, let the bags absorb enough water, then lift them out and stand them upright. After excess water drains, place them on the fruiting shelves for fruiting management. This method is most suitable for pest control in the late fruiting stage, as it not only controls pests but also replenishes the water deficiency in the mushroom bags. For sciarid flies and dung flies, spray 500× trichlorfon. If gall midges break out severely, spray 500× phoxim. When springtails cause serious damage, spray 500× dichlorvos, but note that oyster mushrooms are very sensitive to dichlorvos, and even slightly higher concentrations may cause phytotoxicity.

For mosquitoes, springtails, slugs, and other pests in mushroom sheds (rooms), fumigation with aluminum phosphide is very effective. The specific procedure is as follows: For sciarid flies, dung flies, mushroom mosquitoes, springtails, slugs, and other pests, use 3 tablets (9.9 g) per cubic meter; for gall midges, use 10 tablets (33 g) per cubic meter for fumigation. During fumigation, the mushroom shed (room) must be sealed, and operators must wear gas masks and strictly follow operating procedures. After fumigation, the mushroom room must remain sealed for 48 hours, then ventilated for 2-3 hours before entering. Aluminum phosphide decomposes after absorbing moisture from the air, releasing phosphine gas. This gas has very strong penetrating power and can kill pests on the surface and inside the mushroom blocks, while having no effect on the growth of mycelium and fruiting bodies, and leaving no toxic residue in the mushroom bodies.