Biology and Molecular Approaches in Genetic Improvement of Cultivated Button Mushroom (Agaricus Bisporus)

The world of mushrooms, owing to their sudden appearance in numbers, groups, rings, bunches and also in isolation as a single attractive and imposing structure, has fascinated man since time immemorial, and references are available in the scriptures of many ancient civilizations. The collection and consumption of mushrooms from the wild is still a practice in many regions of the world. All mushrooms are not edible, and some are highly poisonous. While edible fleshy fungi are called mushrooms, poisonous ones are termed 'toadstools'. The button mushroom (Agaricus bisporus) is the leader, contributing 31.8% to total world mushroom production. The cultivation technology for the button mushroom has witnessed evolutionary changes over the years, from the season-long method of composting to the current indoor composting and controlled environment cropping, but very little has been achieved in respect of improved high-yielding strains. Nowadays, work is been going on to develop new improved high-yielding strains with disease resistance, using molecular markers.