Since the publication of the first edition, important developments have emerged in modern mushroom biology and world mushroom production and products. The relationship of mushrooms with human welfare and the environment, medicinal properties of mushrooms, and the global marketing value of mushrooms and their products have all garnered great attention, identifying the need for an updated, authoritative reference. Mushrooms: Cultivation, Nutritional Value, Medicinal Effect, and Environmental Impact, Second Edition presents the latest cultivation and biotechnological advances that contribute to the modernization of mushroom farming and the mushroom industry. It describes the individual steps of the complex mushroom cultivation process, along with comprehensive coverage of mushroom breeding, efficient cultivation practices, nutritional value, medicinal utility, and environmental impact. Maintaining the format, organization, and focus of the previous edition, this thoroughly revised edition includes the most recent research findings and many new references. It features new chapters on medicinal mushrooms and the effects of pests and diseases on mushroom cultivation. There are also updated chapters on specific edible mushrooms, and an expanded chapter on technology and mushrooms. Rather than providing an encyclopedic review, this book emphasizes worldwide trends and developments in mushroom biology from an international perspective. It takes an interdisciplinary approach that will appeal to industrial and medical mycologists, mushroom growers, botanists, plant pathologists, and professionals and scientists in related fields. This book illustrates that mushroom cultivation has and will continue to have a positive global impact on long-term food nutrition, health care, environmental conservation and regeneration, and economic and social change.

The idea to write this book was born during our visit to a mushroom farm house at Bunda College of Agriculture, University of Malawi, Lilongwe, Malawi, and also during our discussions with several beginners of mushroom farming activities in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and other countries in Africa. The visits were a part of a fact finding mission for a UNDP/UNOPS-funded Regional Project for Africa on Promoting Sustainable Development in Africa from Africa's biodiversity, which was based at the University of Namibia, and whose Founding Director was the second author of the book, who was then also a Founding UNESCO/UNU Chair for Africa, based in Namibia. The First Edition of the book was a product of a document compiled by Prof. S. T. Chang and Prof. K. E. Mshigeni in October 2000, within the broad umbrella of the UNDP/UNOPS Project referred to above. The objective of the First Edition of the book was to enable beginners of mushroom farming activities in Africa to have some basic understanding of mushroom biology and mushroom farming technologies. The current book updates the technologies involved, showthe great advances recently made in mushrooms and human health.