Over the last five years, Warwick Gill from the University of Tasmania and Judy Allan have led the levy funded
project MU 16003 Pest and disease management and research services, creating an exhaustive and detailed body of knowledge for the Australian mushroom industry.

A mushroom industry-funded project has delivered a commercially available early disease detection service which has revolutionised the way growers manage disease.

The marketing team at Hort Innovation has developed a new approach to the Marketing Planning Process through close collaboration with industry. This fresh approach for the FY23, presented in September 2021 by Hort Innovation General Managers of Marketing Jane Smith and Kylie Hudson, laid out a commitment to foster better working relationships with growers and peak industry bodies.

In his book Entangled Life, Merlin Sheldrake imagines the soil as a “horizonless external gut – digestion and salvage everywhere, with flocks of bacteria surfing waves of electrical charge... like the Wild West with all those bandits, brigands, loners, crap shooters… and the seething intimate contact on all sides by fungal hyphae.”

In realigning their approach to mushroom marketing, Hort Innovation has committed to strong collaboration with the Mushroom Industry Strategic Investment Advisory Panel (SIAP). This will ensure that any decisions regarding mushroom messaging are data-driven, rather than being based on opinion or hearsay. The objective is to drive demand for mushrooms through increasing consumer knowledge, attitudes and purchase intent.

When people think of horticulture in Ireland, they probably think potatoes. However, the largest horticulture sector in Ireland is actually mushrooms. With 40 farms employing more than 3,500 people and a farm gate value over €120 million, mushrooms are a major industry on the Emerald Isle, a country with a population of only 5 million.