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mdav1301

How to dig up stinkhorns?

MDav1301
12 years ago

I've had a recent outbreak of stinkhorns in one section of my landscaping around my house. After much research I've realized that short of digging up all of my mulch and paving it over, I can't "get rid" of them. But I think it's worth the effort to control them, so they don't overtake the entire area. I put a plastic sandwich bag over the top of the fruiting body before digging it out to keep the spores from spreading while it's removed (and to keep it from getting on my hands). I dig up the "eggs" surrounding the area too. Today I went on an "egg hunt" in the area even though there had been no mushrooms popping up for a few days and found around 15 eggs. Do the eggs always "bloom"? Or do some of them just sit there in the soil? I really dug around the area and removed about three garbage bags full of mulch, as I think we over mulched in that area in the first place (we're fairly new at the landscaping thing altogether, only had the house two years). The winter before last left at least a foot of snow piled everywhere for almost three months (for those of you who live in NE you'll know what I'm talking about) which left lots of white "mold" in the mulch in that area of my yard. Should I have removed all of that before laying down new mulch last year and then this year? It didn't seem to be hurting the plants.

Anyway, the greater question is, do the "eggs" spread spores? I was digging pretty heavily and trying to really disturb the mulch pretty deeply to expose a lot of this stuff. In other words, did I just spread spores everywhere? Or are the spores only spread by the fruiting body? It's not that hard to dig these out periodically but if I have to be extremely careful to remove the eggs and throw away garden tools every time I do this it's going to be a lot of work, and cost a TON of money.

Thanks!!

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