Question
i live in Coos Bay Oregon, we have a beautiful front yard and then just last week right where we cut down the old apple tree and grass has grown over it, BOOM mushrooms have grown there, how do we get rid of them so we can have our pretty lawn again and sell our house?

Answer
The weekly Mushrooms-in-the-Lawn question.

Quickest way to take control of these is to rake the lawn every morning.  Parents do that because they worry that pets and children will pick and eat one.

Where did these come from?

Mushrooms show up when you have a lot of organic material.  A tree that was not completely removed, including the underground roots, is a gourmet meal for Fungi and their blooming Mushrooms.

Fungi are Saprophytes that are always a part of the decay.  Mushrooms are their "flowers" -- "Lepiota lutea" is my guess what you have in this case -- getting ready to reproduce.

They are unsightly, but they may also be hazardous to pets and children.  These are not the finger lickin' kind of mushrooms, and we would not want an innocent, hungry dog to taste one.

The stump and roots, 'way underground, are being decomposed.  Unground, this can go on for decades.  Yes, DECADES.

Here's why:

Cellulose and Wood are some of the toughest things to break down.  Cellulose is a complex carbohydrate that gives form and structure to plants.  It is decayed by specialized bacteria that make an enzyme for digesting their long, long chains of Glucose.  You need a serious microbes population to break down Cellulose.

Not with Wood.

Wood and bark are made of Lignin.  Although Lignin SEEMS like Cellulose, although they are both tough and fibrous. Lignin is as different from Cellulose as chocolate ice cream is from the gas in your engine.  Lignin ONLY decays when specialized FUNGI do the breaking down.

Do you see where we're going with this?

You NEED those Fungi or this Mushrooms problem will still be here in 100 years.

So anyone who tells you how to get rid of the Mushroom-making Fungi is just prolonging your agony.  Unless of course you can get someone over to grind and REMOVE the stump and roots, once and for all.

If you're thinking a quick sodding will take care of this problem, it will not work long term.  But . . .

For your purposes, it may work long enough for you to sell your house!

Lignin isn't made of Glucose.  It's made of Alcohol chains, glued together with Crazy Glue and completely impervious to Enzymes.  It takes a tough Fungus to crumble Lignin.

Even if you could somehow accelerate this process, it would still take YEARS to finish.  Lignin is very, very tough, and Fungi are very, very patient.  And they like to make Mushrooms.

Fungi do something else.  They make your soil increasingly acidic.  As they digest that Lignin, they produce organic acids to break it down; soil pH drops down, and down, and down.

Quickest fix here: Put down a year's dose of Pelletized Lime to adjust surface soil to preferred Grass pH; then blanket the area with a matching sod.  Just remember to tip off the homebuyers post-Closing about that tree -- and give them my name.

Any questions on this, let me know.