1Department of Entomology and Agriculture, Dr. Y.S. Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni-Solan.
*Department of Entomology, CSK HPKV, Palampur-176 062 (HP), India.
**Department of Plant Pathology, CSK HPKV, Palampur-176 062 (HP), India.
An experiment was conducted to study the effects of population levels of 101, 102 and 103 of Aphelenchoides swarupi and Aphelenchus avenae inoculated at casing time on mycelial growth of Agaricus bisporus, A. bitorquis and Calocybe indica at 20 and 40 days of inoculation. Nematode multiplication at 40 days of the inoculation was also recorded. Although, all mushrooms were adversely affected but impact on mycelial growth of C. indica was significantly less than that in Agaricus spp. The per cent growth of mycelium reduced significantly as the nematode inoculum increased. The mean nematode population of 39.2 × 103 and 43.8 × 103 retrieved from A. bisporus and A. bitorquis, respectively, at 40 days of casing was significantly higher than 12.4 × 103 recovered from C. indica. A. swarupi multiplied much faster (mean count of 51.1 × 103) than A. avenae having mean nematode population of 6.4 × 103. The nematode multiplication was significantly faster on Agaricus spp. than C. indica. Though nematode population increased significantly with the increase in initial population levels, their multiplication rate actually decreased significantly as initial population increased thus indicate an inverse relationship between initial population levels and multiplication rate.
Aphelenchoides swarupi, Aphelenchus avenae, Agaricus bisporus, Agaricus bitorquis, Calocybe indica, mushroom, nematode population
