Re: Does hydrogen peroxide kill or harm fungis such as mushrooms?

Sorry for the delay!   I didn't know it was in my mailbox and I was gone 
for the holidays!  I'm terribly sorry but I hope this answers your 
question!   
   
   Without knowing what you are trying to do, I can't really offer a lot 
of help.  There are a lot of variables to consider, like type of mushroom 
and type of substrate.  What sort of contamination are you worried about?

   Hydrogen peroxide, H2O2, will kill anything in sufficient 
concentration.  So the short of your question is, "Yes, it will kill fungi 
and mushrooms."  But it's a little more complicated than that.

  H2O2 is a strong oxidizing agent. Chemically, that means it will add 
oxygen and remove hydrogen from any substance it can.  In industrial 
concentrations 30-70%, you can do a lot. Spray it onto a platinum screen 
and (BAM!)you have rocket fuel. (www.rocketguy.com)  It'll rust pretty 
much anything.  By contrast, the stuff you buy at the drug store is 0.05%  
You can't do much of anything with that.  Kill the bacteria on your boo-
boo. Dye your hair, maybe.
   
   Biologically, it's found in all cells as part of the metabolic pathway 
in the mitochondria. It's also used by the immune system to destroy 
foreign antigen.
   
   As a stand-alone disenfectant, however, its not particularly good.   
The concentrations needed to be effective are beyond what can be 
reasonably maintained.  H2O2 will decay into water and oxygen pretty 
readily. so you'd have to keep adding it.
   
   Fungi in general are a pretty resilient lot.  People tend to lump them 
together with bacteria, but they are actually more similar in cell 
structure to animals than anything else.  For that reason, there's no 
antibiotic you can use against fungi.  It's also the reason that a fungal 
infection in humans is pretty hard to clear out. Anything that's really 
good at killing fungi cells is likely to be good at killing YOUR cells, 
too.
   Without knowing what you want to do, I can't offer anything else.  Let 
me know if you have any more questions.  Sorry again for the delay.
   
Mike Gasink

mlgasi@wm.edu