Managing Mushroom Pests

Problem

How can crop damages caused by mushroom phorid flies and their irritating infestations of nearby rural developments be reduced without using chemical insecticides?

• Chester County, Pennsylvania, is the locus of the state's sixty-seven mushroom farms that produce 64 percent of domestic mushrooms.
• The EPA banned the most commonly used pesticide for mushroom phorid flies in 2012 after finding it made the fungi toxic to humans.

Findings

Researchers tested two approaches to biologically controlling the reproduction and movement of the pests by establishing a mushroom phorid fly colony--likely the only such experimental colony in the world.

Impact

Biopesticides can provide immediate and future solutions:

• Short-term solutions use pheromones to confuse male flies, preventing them from mating and keeping the population from building up inside mushroom houses.
• Long-term solutions use biopesticides that are already approved for other plants and provide a nontoxic remedy at the source of the flies.

Related Research Areas:  Integrated Health, Environmental Resilience, and Advanced Agricultural and Food Systems

Research Credit

Team

• Nina Jenkins and Tom Baker

Participating Departments

• Entomology

Competitive Funding

• Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture; American Mushroom Institute

Federal and State Appropriations

• USDA NIFA Hatch Projects PEN04608 and PEN04609, Accession #1010032 and #1010058

Emerging Discoveries

Penn State researchers tackling mushroom phorid fly infestations

March 19, 2018

Working with mushroom growers and residents in southern Chester County, Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences is ramping up ongoing research efforts to alleviate mushroom phorid fly infestations in southeastern Pennsylvania.

Penn State entomologists devise a system to control mushroom phorid flies

January 28, 2021

In 2016, a team of researchers from the Department of Entomology in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences launched an intensive effort to solve the problem in southeast Pennsylvania caused by mushroom phorid flies. Now their effort is expected to pay off big time.