• The Korean Journal of Mycology
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• v.45 no.3
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• pp.188-195
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• 2017

Despite the high commercial value of the pine mushroom (Tricholoma matsutake) around the world, its production still depends upon natural harvesting. In recent years, mushroom researchers in Korea and Japan have been successful in artificially cultivating T. matsutake by producing single mushroom through matsutake-infected pine seedlings. In this study, we determined the minimum seedling height required for the survival of matsutake mycelia in the infected pine seedlings in the field. The survival rate of matsutake mycelia in the matsutake-infected pine seedlings was 50% (14) in two years and 71% (10) in one year after their transplantation. The average height at time of transplantation of the matsutake-infected pine seedlings that bore surviving mycelia after transplantation was 25 cm (minimum 12 cm to maximum 40 cm). In conclusion, the matsutake mycelium of matsutake-infected pine seedlings was able to survive in field conditions if the height of the seedling at the time of T. matsutake infection was at least 12 cm. These results suggest that the height of the host plants used in conventional matsutake-infected pine seedling production should be greatly reduced to improve the matsutake cultivation. Therefore, standardization of the seedling height for artificial cultivation of pine mushrooms by the matsutake-infected pine seedling method is suggested.