Martmari van Greuning of Sylvan


South Africa received an ISMS Hono- rary Life Membership at the Opening Ceremony of the 19th ISMS, as did Mark Wach (Sylvan USA) and Anton Sonnenberg (WUR).


Helen Grogan (TEAGASC) gave several lectures on


pests and diseases in mushroom cultivation. Johan Baars, Treasurer of ISMS stands besides her.


Mycologist and author Paul Stamets (Fungi Perfecti) in discussion with keynote speaker Han Wösten on the commercial prospects of mycelium as packing material.


Günther Pauli gave a passionate keynote


lecture about the social impact of community based mushroom farming.


what we now know on genes involved in fruiting and how environmental factors influences this process.


Norihiro Shimomura of the Tottori University, Japan discussed possibilities for breeding the ectomycorrhizal mushroom Rhizopogon roseolus. The unravelling of the life cycle, especially spore germination enables breeding of this delicious and expensive mushroom. The last lecture in this session was presented by Song Chuyan of the Institute of Edible Fungi, Shanghai. Research on the effect of a series of temperature changes on mycelial growth in shiitake was presented. She showed that the effect on mycelial growth rate during changing environmental temperatures varies considera- bly between isolates and offspring. This is relevant information for breeding since the crop cycles in mushroom production is all about chancing temperatures, especially in cultivation systems that do not have climate control.


Molecular biology The session of molecular biology and bioche- mistry had particularly interesting presentati- ons by Mirjam Kabel from WUR, Aurin Vos from Utrecht University and Ronald de Vries from KNAW-CBS in Utrecht. Kabel discussed the fate of lignin and substituted xylan during commer- cial cultivation of Agaricus bisporus. Using pyrolysis mass spectrometry she could demon- strate how lignin was modified/degraded during vegetative growth of Agaricus bisporus in compost. Using other analytical techniques she was able to show that during cultivation, substituted xylan fragments accumulate in


compost. These xylan (hemicellulose) structures contain 4-O-methyl) glucuronic acid and arabinose units linked to the xylan backbone. Apparently, Agaricus bisporus is not able to produce enzymes that are able to break away these molecules from the xylan backbone. Vos presented results from his attempts to increase lignin degradation by Agaricus bisporus by overexpressing manganese peroxidase in strain A15. Although the manganese peroxidase activity was clearly enhanced in his experimen- tal strain, he was not able to demonstrate an improved lignin degradation. No differences were found when analysing the lignin composi- tion using pyrolysis GC.MS and no significant differences were found in the compost when analysing it for content and composition of carbohydrates. De Vries presented results on genome and transcriptome analysis for genes encoding for the removal of 4-O-methyl) glucuronic acid and arabinose units linked to the xylan backbone. Apparently the genome of Agaricus bisporus encodes for two genes able to fulfil these functions, but the fungus does not seem to express those genes. This would partly explain why the carbohydrates in compost are not used to their full extent.


Next to these big sessions, there were also sessions on substrate and composting, cultiva- tion techniques, germplasm and taxonomy and on mycorrhiza’s. Although very interesting, there is hardly room for us to discuss these presentations within this article.


See elsewhere in this magazine for more on Mushroom Week.


Ñ MUSHROOM BUSINESS 17


Agnieszka Jasinska (Poznan


University of Life Sciences) talking on the “Impact of compost sup- plemented with waste paper and anaerobically digested food waste on cultivation of Coprinus comatus” in a Compost Session on May 31st.


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