Trichoderma viride

Green Mould

A common wood- and soil-inhabiting Trichoderma that is also one of the fungi behind green mould in mushroom growing. Stamets & Chilton (1983) name T. viride as a mushroom pathogen of casing and compost that appears early in a crop. Wang et al. (2016) isolated it from green-mould-diseased shiitake (Lentinula edodes) logs in Henan, China, where some isolates strongly inhibited shiitake mycelium in dual culture. It is also used as a biofungicide that parasitises other fungi (First Nature).

Species profile

Edibility: Not edible

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Not edible; a contaminant and crop pathogen of cultivated mushrooms. Its spores are allergenic, mainly causing hypersensitivity pneumonitis and asthma. It can cause opportunistic lung infections in immunocompromised people, and a T. viride cellulase has sensitised workers in the feed-enzyme industry (Thermo Fisher allergen encyclopedia).

Mycology is an evolving science: names, classifications and safety information change as research advances. Entries are compiled from cited sources and reviewed, but may be incomplete or out of date — check the sources, and never rely on this library alone to identify or eat a mushroom.

Habitat

Saprobic on well-rotted, wet wood and isolated from many soils (Samuels et al. 1999; First Nature). Also on leaf litter, peat, bark and water-damaged buildings (Thermo Fisher). In cultivation it occurs on shiitake bed-logs and bag-logs (Wang et al. 2016), and Trichoderma in general occurs on casing and compost (Stamets & Chilton 1983).

Characteristics

Conidia: green, subglobose and warted. Among Trichoderma sect. Trichoderma only T. viride and T. asperellum have warted conidia (Samuels et al. 1999); Stamets & Chilton (1983) also describe its spores as roughened. Colony: on PDA at 25 C the radius reaches about 8-33 mm in 48 h. Optimum about 25 C; most strains stop growing on PDA after 72 h at 30 C in darkness. About half of strains smell of coconut (Samuels et al. 1999). On mushroom substrates (genus-level description): grey and diffuse at first, turning forest green as it sporulates, cottony and fast on agar, and forming circular colonies on casing or compost (Stamets & Chilton 1983). Sexual stage: complex orange-brown stromata up to 10 mm across and 3-5 mm tall, finely hairy when young, with white spore masses at reddish-brown ostioles and perithecia 100-150 um across (First Nature).