Home | To bottom

When mushroom kills

Are you fed up of dreadful houseflies roaming around your kitchen? Are you so irritated because aside from giving diseases, getting rid of them costs a lot? Flycatchers are so expensive so why not resort to cheaper but effective fly control methods.

Here in the Cordillera mountain ranges lie mushrooms that are not only edible but also potential housefly killers. The process is free, environmental friendly and 100% sure.

In a study conducted by Shelly Abag and Professor Bernard Tad-awan of the Benguet State University (BSU) called “Survey, Characterization, and Evaluation of Lumsek Mushroom’s Effect on Housefly (Musca domestica)” proved this type of killer mushroom.

The study described the natural habitat and usefulness of lumsek mushroom in Kabayan, Benguet, characterize the mushroom, describe the relationship of the mushroom with its habitat, and test the fly control potential of the mushroom.

Being micorrhizal, according to the researchers, relates to the root of the pine tree. They have symbiotic relationship. Mushrooms are allowed to grow in trees roots and draw nutrients from them. In return, the fungus gives many benefits to the different activities of the roots.

Lumsek, as locally called in Benguet and other parts of Mountain Province, is one mushroom that local folks use as food and as traditional means to control houseflies, which abound in the vegetable-growing areas where chicken dung is commonly used as fertilizer. It grows only in cold and moist mountain and bear fruit under pine canopy covered with grass. Its cap is white when young. Later, it has gray-black patches and turns to entirely gray-black when dried.

Most of the old folks knowledgeable of the lumsek mushroom’s presence and uses in Kabayan claimed that the fruiting period is mainly in June and July. They further asserted that lumsek produce fruiting body at the onset of the rainy season.

Results of the researcher’s experiment proved that the use of 10 grams fresh lumsek mushroom significantly killed houseflies compared to the use of Baygon and flypaper. Fresh lumsek killed 97% of the houseflies relative to the flypaper.

However, when dried, untreated lumsek, did not kill any fly.

The results indicated that the chemical found in the mushroom could only be poisonous to houseflies when fresh.

The result of poisoning depends on the amount of amatoxin (poison from mushroom) consumed by the fly in relation its weight. It could be deduced from the result that the amount of toxin present in lumsek is minimal that it only poisons flies, being far less in weight than human.

So, stand up now. Prepare your materials and start culturing lumsek for a free housefly killer. # Florence Batawang/UP Intern for NORDIS

Post your comments, reactions to this article

Home | Back to top