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Abstract: Pleurotus ostreatus is a wild mushroom. In order to use it commercially with lasting profit intensive breeding is necessary. Pleurotus ostreatus should be improved not only with regard to yield and appearance but also to taste and odour. Furthermore the spore production of cultures should be drastically reduced, because of the following hazards that mass release of spores in commercial mushroom houses may bear: a) spread of virus - if one emerges in this fungus b) development of allergies among people working in mushroom farms or living in their vicinity c) accidental development and spread of strains that may be harmful to native trees. I want to encourage breeders and spawn producers to convert the wild Pleurotus ostreatus into what we call in German a "Kulturpflanze". This will be relatively easy. Pleurotus ostreatus shows tetrapolar incompatibility (Eugenio and Anderson, 1968; Terakawa, 1960; Wang and Anderson, 1967), the germination of fresh or refrigerated spores is close to 100% and a rapid selection for fertility is already possible among monokaryons - as this paper shows. The Pleurotus ostreatus with which we are working originates from S.S. Block, Gainesville, Florida (Block et al, 1958). There was some doubt as to the correct systematical position of this fungus at the beginning of our research (Eger, 1965). In the meantime the North American mushroom taxonomist A.H. Smith has kindly provided authentic material of Pleurotus ostreatus from Michigan. Compared under culture conditions the sporophores of the two American sources were identical in shape, color, taste, and odour. There was no difference in spore size or shape. Spore-derived monokaryons of both origins were completely crossfertile
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