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Abstract: There is very little known about mushroom (Agaricus bisporus (Lange) Sing.) spawn pathogens. I am familiar with only three papers describing problems of spawn and spawn contamination. Stoller (1962) wrote of 'Contamination and an Apparent "Disease" of Spawn'. He states that 'the usual contaminants in stock bottles are the green moulds', but he does not describe or name any of these moulds. He also wrote about 'microbes' which caused inhibition of mycelial growth, described the 'wet spot' condition of spawn and tried to connect this condition to 'X-disease'. Miss O'Donoghue (1963) reported the presence of actinomycetes in a bottle of spawn which induced sporophore production. In an article entitled 'Honesty is the Best Policy' (Anon, 1968), the White Queen Spawn Company describes a severe setback of spawn production caused by heavy bacterial contamination. They found that the contaminating organism was 'a spore bearing, heat-resisting Bacillus, which grew rapidly at 80°F but was inert at 70°F'. Other than the above references, even though it is very well known that during production spawn can be contaminated by different micro-organisms, there is no information on what these pathogens are, what influence they have on spawn and what are the ways of contamination. One may wonder what are the reasons for such a lack of information. Probably White Queen Ltd. is correct when they write 'no spawn maker ever admitted he was at fault', and problems of contamination are the company secrets of most of the spawn producers. Contamination has been a major problem in the L.F. Lambert Spawn Company and this research was initiated with the following objectives: (1) to determine the types and extent of contamination; (2) to determine the effects of the different contaminants on spawn production ; and (3) to eliminate this contamination as much as possible.
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