1960s, various crops such as potatoes, fruit trees and strawberries were made virus-free. In these sectors, using virus -free propagating material is normal practice. Dedicated inspection services for horticulture monitor, inspect and certify virus-free seed and planting materials. We should use this as an example and learn from this approach.
If a farms becomes infected by a virus, you need a way of breaking the virus. A strain that cannot interact with currently used strains. Using a very different strain for one cropping cycle prevents the virus from being transferred and effectively cleanses the farm. There is no need to empty all the rooms and stop production before starting again. It is not essential to expect this strain to produce the highest quality and yields. It is simply used as a temporary circuit breaker. Research institutes: Having compost, mushrooms or spawn tested is still quite complicated, expensive and time consuming. In additions, the tests are not sen- sitive enough to detect very low concentrations of a virus. What is needed is a simple, quick test that enables growers or composting yards to make a rapid diagnosis. It would also be interesting to discover whether these virus particles can ‘jump’ from other fungi and whether vectors such as nematodes and insects can transmit these viruses. Machinery suppliers
Buildings, machinery, spawning halls, tunnels, shelving systems etc. should all be redesigned with a greater emphasis on hygiene. No gaps and hidden crevices that can harbour compost residues. Cleaning and disinfecting should be easier and more effective. And sandwich construction panels used to build farms must always resistant to cook-out. Composting yards
We know that composting yards play a major role as the virus can build up at these sites.
In fact, hygiene is the key word for all diseases in our sector, including for MVX! Hygiene at spawning is vital. Absolutely no phase III or compost residues must be allowed to come into contact with the spawnable compost. The tunnel where spawning is about to take place must be thoroughly cooked out or disinfected using effective pasteurisation (in other words: high ammonia concentration). All the areas and machinery used to move the spawned compost must also be kept spotlessly clean to ensure no residues of ‘old ’material are left behind. It goes without saying that compost residues should never be recycled. Farms
Hygiene levels have slackened considerably on many farms in recent years. In the past, rooms were consistently cooked out at 70 degrees Celsius for 12 hours and well-functioning inlet and outlet filters were normal. Now, forced by rising costs of energy and labour and efficiency measures, spent mushroom compost is no longer cooked out and filters on the air outlets are hardly used. This means that high concentrations of infected material are released to the outside air. In addition, the range of effective disinfectants and crop protection products is continuing to decline in number. Time to tighten up the reins of hygiene again. Authorities
Everything has to be organic thesed days. Please do not get me wrong, I am in favour of reducing chemical use. But I also know you need a powerful weapon to stamp out the first signs of disease before it can spread. I’m sure no one would object if these chemical were only available with a prescription so to speak. But today there is only a very limited range of permitted crop protection products and even effective disinfec- tants like formalin are being banned. So I ask the authorities to ensure that some chemicals are kept on the market.
It appears that certain stress factors induce
the virus - or the mycelium - to express MVX symptoms.
A “twin” of a white and brown mushroom.
When the twin is cut open, the brown layer is revealed to be very thin. MUSHROOM BUSINESS 15
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