Research of Edible Fungi in Shanghai

The modern edible fungi study in China was originated in Shanghai. The Edible Fungi Institute (EFI) under the Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Science has made many breakthroughs in the Chinese edible fungi study. EFI has succeeded in getting pure spawns, has diversified the cultivation varieties of edible fungi by domesticating wild mushrooms, and has developed the bag cultivation technology. The three essential scientific and technological innovations have allowed the Chinese edible fungi industry to leapfrog for three times. The IEF has been insisting on the researches on genetics and breeding of Xianggu. Up to now, the IEF has kept over 1000 wild Xianggu strains collected from domestic provinces and foreign countries, and has evaluated those strains by conducting fruiting tests and DNA Polymorphism Comparison Tests. According to the requirements of the Ministry of Agriculture of China, the IEF establishes the DUS (Distinctness, Uniformity and Stability) Testing Guidelines for new Xianggu varieties. In recent years, the IEF researchers have adopted RAPD, ISSR and AFLP to identify primary Xianggu cultivation spawns in China, and have been carrying on theoretical and technological innovation on breeding Xianggu mainly through inbreeding. Motivated by the new generation of high-throughput DNA sequencing technologies, more and more genome sequences are sequenced in fungi. The IEF has made use of the full genome sequence of Xianggu to promote the study on the genetic breeding technology. These researches include the development of molecular markers of Xianggu strains, the illustration of biological functions at the molecular level, the establishment of the linkage groups and the construction of QTL genetic map.