Pests of Mushroom and their Ecological Management Strategies: A Review

Author: Robin Rijal, Priyanka Maity and Adesh Kumar

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Abstract

In the recent years, mushroom production is gaining popularity in most part of the world as the enterprising assists to transform the agricultural wastes into high healthy nutritional foods. Infestation by several pests poses serious threats to mushroom crop during its cultivation. The major pests that are associated with mushroom crops are arachnids, insects, and nematodes. The main challenges in the pest management of mushrooms are inadequate scientific researches for the management of pests, use of less innovative technologies with inadequate information for the control of pests, lack of effective formulations in management packages and, lack of thorough analysis of the mushrooms ecosystem in its appropriate environmental, social and ecological settings. Despite of that Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is considered as the most effective and efficient pest management tool which includes cultural, biological, physical, mechanical and chemical methods, therefore, IPM assists to furnis

Keywords

Mushroom, Ecosystem, Cultivation, Pests, Integrated Pest Management etc.

Conclusion

To conclude, Mushroom farming is becoming the most popular enterprise nowadays. Farmers from different parts of the world are intensively growing different species of mushrooms like field and horticultural crops. However, one of the serious threats during mushroom cultivation is severe infestation by several pests, leading to huge mushrooms damage resulting into heavy economic loss. For effective and efficient management of pests, IPM acts as an ecological tool, which incorporates preventive and restorative measures to keep the crops free from pests with minimum risk towards ecosystem. It is advisable to rely less on chemical methods to control pests because excessive use of chemicals leads to create long term negative impacts on natural ecosystem, and has adverse effects for both beneficial living organisms and human also.

References

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How to cite this article

Rijal, R., Maity, P. and Kumar, A. (2021). Pests of Mushroom and their Ecological Management Strategies: A Review. Biological Forum – An International Journal, 13(1): 375-387.