A radial basis function (RBF) neural network was developed and compared against a quadratic response surface (RS) model for predicting the specific growth rates of the biotechnologically important basidiomycetous fungi, Physisporinus vitreus and Neolentinus lepideus, under three environmental conditions: temperature (10-30 A degrees C), water activity (0.950-9.998), and pH (4-6). Both the RBF network and polynomial RS model were mathematically evaluated against experimental data using graphical plots and several statistical indices. The evaluation showed that both models gave reasonably good predictions, but the performance of the RBF neural network was superior to that of the classical statistical method for all three data sets used (training, testing, full). Sensitivity analysis revealed that of the three experimental factors the most influential on the growth rate of P. vitreus was water activity, followed by temperature and pH to a lesser extent. In contrast, temperature in particular and then water activity were the key determinants of the development of N. lepideus. RBF neural networks could be a powerful technique for modeling fungal growth behavior under certain parameters and an alternative to time-consuming, traditional microbiological techniques.