Trichoderma harzianum is the causal organism of a devastating fungal disease, green mold, of cultivated mushrooms, Agaricus bisporus. Lycoriella mali (Diptera:Sciaridae) is the major insect pest of mushrooms throughout the world and has been associated with the spread of mushroom diseases associated with Verticillium fungicola and Pseudomonas tolassii. We found that adult L. mali carried significant numbers of Trichoderma spores. Field-collected male flies were more likely to be carrying spores than females but both sexes carried spores at a higher proportion than would be indicated by the incidence of the disease in particular mushroom houses. In the laboratory, female flies preferentially oviposited in compost infected with green mold and the resulting larvae had significantly better survivorship in infected compost as compared with larvae in healthy compost with only Agaricus mycelium. Samples of compost taken from farms with green mold demonstrated that a majority of larvae were associated with areas of actively sporulating areas with green mold infections. Flies that emerged from compost infected with green mold and then exposed to healthy compost were able to initiate infections.
Keywords: Mushrooms, Trichoderma harzianum
The ESA 2001 Annual Meeting - 2001: An Entomological Odyssey of ESA