Identification of Suitable And Efficient Substrate For The Production of Oyster Mushrooms

Abstract

Muslrroom production can play an impofiant role in managing farrn organic wastes when agricultural and food proccssing by-products are usecl as growing rnedia for this edible f-ungus. The investigation was carried out to identify the suitable and efficient substrate for the production of oyster mushrooms. The experiment in a complete Randon,ized Design rvith seven treatments and three replicates was conducted in the mushroom hut of the Departrnent of,Agricultural Biology of Eastern university, Sri Lanka. The mushro,rm species used rvas Pleurotu,g ostreatus. The control treatment was sawdust and the other treatments were parldy straw, dried leaves, shredded paper, sawdust + paddy straw mixture, sawdust + dried leaves mixture and sarvdust + slrredded paper mixture. The average yield in terms of fresh weight, total number of flushes, large cap percentage and harvest interval were recorded. The results revealed significant differences in yield performance between treatments. The sawdust + paddy straw mixture showed signifrcantly better yield than that of sawdust" Total number of flushes significantly varied among the substrates, in which paddy straw and sawdust * shredded paper substrate have shown the highest and rowest among treatments. There was no significant difference in large bloom percentage among the treatments. The shredded paper substrate showed significantly longer harvest interval rimpared to the sawdust. In the present study, the substrate consisting of sawdust and paddy straw mixture depicts as efficient substrate than the other substrates as this substrate showed the highest yield, higher number of flushes with acceptabre harvest interval. The sawdust + dried leaves mixture is found to be the less ef,ficient substrate for the production of oyster mushrooms because of the lowest yield with Ionger tirne period between tr,vo harvests.