Jasińska et al. 2019 - Cadmium and zinc in cultivated Agaricus subrufescens

Jasińska and colleagues measured zinc and cadmium in the gourmet and medicinal mushroom Agaricus subrufescens and related concentrations to cultivation conditions. The study is routeable for mushroom occurrence context because it reports cadmium concentrations in fruiting bodies and substrates. It is an experimental cultivation source, not a retail-market survey.

Key numbers

All values are mg/kg dry matter (d.m.) unless otherwise noted.

• Cd in fruiting bodies (Table 2, by substrate × flush): 2.6 mg/kg (MC10 % 5th flush) to 17.9 mg/kg (MC40 % 1st flush). Mean across all substrates and flushes 6.63 mg/kg (SD 5.08). The Results text reports an internal range of 1.2–21.6 mg/kg “data not presented in the tables,” which is wider than the per-cell range visible in Table 2 (2.6–17.9); the table-cell range is used here as the audit-defensible value.
• Zn in fruiting bodies (Table 2): 43.9 mg/kg (MC20 % 4th flush) to 116.2 mg/kg (MC40 % 3rd flush). Mean across all substrates and flushes 81.5 mg/kg (SD 25.20). The abstract reports a slightly wider Zn range of 42.8–126.9 mg/kg without table attribution; Table 2 cells span 43.9–116.2.
• Cd in mushroom composts at inoculation (Table 1): 0.36 mg/kg (10 % digestate) to 0.19 mg/kg (40 % digestate); Cd decreased as digestate share rose.
• Zn in mushroom composts at inoculation (Table 1): 34.78 mg/kg (10 % digestate) to 28.75 mg/kg (40 % digestate).
• Bioconcentration factor BCF (basidiocarp/substrate, Table 3): Zn 1.82–3.75 across MC10 %–MC40 %; Cd 20.4–29.4 across the four substrates, indicating substantially stronger Cd than Zn bioaccumulation regardless of digestate fraction.
• EU regulation cited: Commission Regulation (EC) No. 1881/2006 sets a general Cd limit of 1 mg/kg fresh matter for mushrooms excluding Agaricus bisporus, which the authors note “roughly corresponds to 10 mg/kg dry matter.”
• Polish legislation cited (per Results text): Zn upper limit of 100 mg/kg DW for mushrooms; the authors note their Zn values are at or just above this limit in the MC30 % and MC40 % flushes.

Methods (brief)

Cultivation: Agaricus subrufescens spawn was applied at 3 % of fresh substrate weight to four mushroom composts based on wheat straw and paper with food waste digestate from anaerobic digestion at 10, 20, 30, and 40 % of pre-processing dry matter. Cultivation bags (50 µm polypropylene, 7 L, ~3 kg compost) were incubated at 25 ± 2 °C for 15 days then 20 ± 2 °C for 5 days at 85–95 % humidity under 6000 K LED, CO₂ < 1000 ppm. Five flushes were harvested over a 110-day cropping period; experiments used a fully randomised design with four replications across two cultivation cycles.

Sample prep: caps and stipes were dried (105 ± 5 °C, 96 h), ground in a Retsch PM 200 cutting/ball mill, and 0.50 ± 0.01 g was microwave-digested in concentrated HNO₃ (Mars 5 Xpress, CEM), filtered, and diluted to 15.0 mL. Each sample was analysed in triplicate.

Determination: total Cd and total Zn by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (Agilent 5100 ICP-OES, radial view; wavelength 214.439 nm; RF 1.2 kW). Method LOD reported at 0.0026 mg/kg d.m. (3σ); whole-procedure analytical uncertainty ~10 %. No matrix-matched mushroom CRM was available; traceability was checked against CRM S-1 (loess soil), CRM NCSDC 73349 (bush branches and leaves), CRM 2709 (soil), and CRM 405 (estuarine sediments), with recovery 80–120 %. ANOVA for randomised blocks at α = 0.05.

The work is an experimental cultivation study using A. subrufescens grown on engineered digestate-based composts. Results are not retail-market occurrence data and should retain substrate, flush, and basis (d.m.) metadata when cited.

Implications

Certification: Supports mushroom Cd context but should be treated separately from ordinary retail mushrooms.

Courses: Useful for explaining substrate-to-fruiting-body transfer.

App: Can inform mushroom ingredient risk only with the experimental-cultivation caveat.

Wiki pages this source may touch

• Mushrooms — cultivated (button, cremini, portobello, oyster)
• Mushrooms
• Cadmium
• Zinc
• Commission Regulation (EC) No 1881/2006 setting maximum levels for certain contaminants in foodstuffs

Verification notes

The source is relevant to cultivated mushroom occurrence (HMTc Category 4 Row 17, cultivated mushrooms) and not to fruit-mixed products despite the auto-fetched filename. Routing was corrected from products/non-root-vegetables (Row 16, above-ground non-leafy vegetables) to products/cultivated-mushrooms on 2026-06-09; the prior routing placed a cultivated-mushroom experimental study into the fresh-vegetable row alongside tomatoes, peppers, and squash, which misrepresents the matrix.

The Results text reports a Cd range of 1.2–21.6 mg/kg d.m. “data not presented in the tables,” wider than the per-cell range visible in Table 2 (2.6–17.9). The Key numbers section uses the table-cell range as the audit-defensible value and flags the discrepancy explicitly; downstream synthesis should not rely on the wider text-only range without a clarification from the authors.

Values are d.m. across substrates and fruiting bodies. Pooling into any cultivated-mushroom-as-consumed distribution requires a dry-to-fresh conversion (the authors cite the EU 1 mg/kg fresh ≈ 10 mg/kg d.m. heuristic for mushrooms); pooling Cd from this paper alongside fresh-matter retail-market mushroom studies without converting basis would silently mix bases.

Page history

The five most recent substantive edits to this page. The full version history lives in git; when DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.