Talk:Mold

This page, Mold, is a general article about mold. As such, the main goal is to answer the question "what is mold?", i.e. the biology of mold. Issues relating to humans are also discussed, but are kept to short summaries. Human related mold issues are discussed in detail in other articles, e.g. Mold health issues, Mold prevention and Mold growth, assessment, and remediation.

This article has previously been nominated to be moved. Please review prior discussions if you are considering renomination. Discussions No consensus, 28 April 2020, from Mold to Mold (fungus), see discussion.

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The current definition is very imprecise and only describes what a lay-person might observe when seeing food beginning to decay. The presence of Hyphae, for example, is a characteristic of all fungi. Whilst this may not be of critical importance here - we can after all have articles about every-day things - it becomes more significant when the term is used elsewhere as in Medicinal molds. In the latter case, this generates a very substantial and very unclear overlap with Medicinal mushrooms. This is a mess that urgently needs resolution. What would be a good start is a clear statement identifying which Phyla are considered to encompass the Molds from which it would be possible to identify all the rest. These won't of course be "Mushrooms" (again a non-taxonomic term) because there will be many ascomycetes and a whole range of fungi not producing classical mushroom or toadstool spore bodies. I haven't the mycological knowledge or skill to sort these out, but I hope that there is an editor out there who can point this article in the right direction.  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   20:18, 16 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

Not all fungi have hyphae – yeasts do not, which is what distinguishes them from molds. I don't think a phylogenetic approach will work as molds, like mushrooms, are a non-taxonomic (polyphyletic) group. But I see you're right about the current definition. I remember hearing that molds were filamentous fungi that lacked macroscopic fruiting bodies, but I don't have a reference for that, and in any case it's clearly an imperfect definition as Aspergillus nidulans, Hypocrea jecorina, and surely many other important molds would fail it. It might be that there is no authoritative definition out there as "mold" is, like "worm", a non-technical word that has been used since human's understanding of biology was rudimentary.

I see what you mean about Medicinal mushrooms and Medicinal molds. Perhaps they should just be merged into a new "Medicinal fungi" article? That would eliminate a lot of overlap, as well as provide a sensible home for the section on yeasts, currently out-of-place in Medicinal molds. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 23:38, 16 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

I feel like every definition of mold I've seen is super ambiguous and never precise. I was wondering if any fungi that reproduce asexually without fruiting bodies are considered as mold? So basically "hyphomycetes" would be considered the "mold" group? How do you think? MagnusVandbakk (talk) 16:01, 25 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

They do extracellular digestion. 103.80.172.165 (talk) 12:50, 14 December 2021 (UTC)Reply

Every fungi does extracellular digestion. It is part of the definition of fungi. MagnusVandbakk (talk) 15:58, 25 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

The Food Production section says Neurospora sitophila is used to produce oncom, but the oncom page says it is Neurospora intermedia. The Neurospora sitophila page also does not mention oncom. I think this is a mistake?
— Dazmax (talk) 19:46, 6 September 2024 (UTC)Reply