In the Netherlands and Ireland the symptoms associated with virus X are cream to light-brown coloured mushrooms growing in between white mushrooms. There’s nothing wrong the quality – it’s excellent firm and robust – but the discolouration of the paper thin layer on the mushroom cap makes them unacceptable for the fresh trade. In The UK the symptoms linked to virus X have far more disastrous consequences – delayed harvest bald patches drop in production and deterioration in quality.<\/p>\n
Certain farms seem more vulnerable to virus X than others, but the virus also appears more prevalent in certain batches of compost than others. This means that the same compost can show virus X symptoms at one farm, but not at another. It’s even feasible that in one and the same growing room one batch of compost will have virus X symptoms while another batch doesn’t. It seems that virus X shows no symptoms in ‘low’ concentrations, but manifests itself under stressful conditions during compost production or cultivation.<\/p>\n
No solution has yet been found for this problem. To keep it under control, provide nutritious compost stimulate evaporation prevent unbalanced stress situations and make sure everyone adheres to strict hygiene!<\/p>\n