New Prospects in Pathogen Control of Button Mushroom Cultures

Abstract Cultivated mushrooms are susceptible to a wide range of viral, bacterial, and fungal pathogens. Due to new regulations and expectations of consumers, the conventional ways of controlling them using pesticides, when these exist, have to be replaced by alternative methods. The most promising alternatives are improvement in prophylaxis and in pathogen detection for a better definition of control strategies, development of biocontrol agents and biomolecules, and selection of resistant strains of cultivated mushrooms. This chapter presents an outline of recent developments in this field for the button mushroom Agaricus bisporus .