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Fungi have appeared, too, from time to time, in literature and art. Fungi create harm by spoiling food, destroying timber, and by causing diseases of crops, livestock, and humans. Fungi, mainly moulds like Penicillium and Aspergillus, spoil many stored foods. Fungi cause the majority of plant diseases, which in turn cause serious economic losses.
Cultivating fungi can yield foods (which include mostly mushrooms), medicine, construction materials and other products. A mushroom farm is involved in the business of growing fungi. The word is also commonly used to refer to the practice of cultivation of fungi by animals such as leafcutter ants, termites, ambrosia beetles, and marsh periwinkles.
Carex utriculata with smut fungus affecting individual seeds. The smuts are multicellular fungi characterized by their large numbers of teliospores.The smuts get their name from a Germanic word for 'dirt' because of their dark, thick-walled, and dust-like teliospores.
Agricultural economics is an applied field of economics concerned with the application of economic theory in optimizing the production and distribution of food and fiber products. Agricultural economics began as a branch of economics that specifically dealt with land usage. It focused on maximizing the crop yield while maintaining a good soil ...
Rust fungi on a plant. The study of gene-for-gene interactions uncovers genetic components, evolutionary impacts, and ecological/economic implications between rust fungi and plants. Rust fungi utilize the gene-for-gene interaction to invade host plants. Conversely, host plants utilize the gene-for-gene interaction to prevent invasion of rust fungi.
Estimating the economic value of biodiversity (and the costs of its continued loss) in agriculture and through the use of wild species for food is both challenging and controversial. Agricultural biodiversity (agrobiodiversity) refers to all the components of biodiversity that are relevant to food and agriculture, and that make up agricultural ...
Some chemical defenses once thought to be produced by the plant have since been shown to be synthesized by endophytic fungi. The chemical basis of insect resistance in endophyte-plant defense mutualisms has been most extensively studied in the perennial ryegrass and three major classes of secondary metabolites are found: indole diterpenes, ergot alkaloids and peramine.
Many soil inhabiting fungi are capable of living saprotrophically, carrying out the role of their life cycle in the soil. These are facultative saprotrophs. Fungal diseases may be controlled through the use of fungicides and other agricultural practices. However, new races of fungi often evolve that are resistant to various fungicides.