CULTIVATION OF PLEUROTUS OSTREATUS (WHITE ANDGREY OYSTER) ON TWO SELECTED SUBSTRATES

A mushroom is a conspicuous umbrellashaped fruiting body of a macrofungi.Mushrooms provide a considerable nutritional profile, encompassing around 2,000 edible species that have been discovered across various regions of the globe.Mushroom cultivation has become very popular worldwide in recent years due to its nutritional and medicinal importance.More than 16% of the world's mushroom harvest comes from the Pleurotus genus, which includes many popular edible mushroom varieties grown in industrial scale.In this study, wheat straw and sawdust are employed as mushroom-growing mediums.For spawn preparation, fresh mushrooms were placed on a paper overnight to collect its spores.Malt extract and agar were used as the culturing media, then, wheat grains were inoculated with the collected spores and freshly cut pieces of the different parts of the mushroom (preferably gills and stipe).Substrate pre-treatment was done by soaking it overnight and adding gypsum to maintain the pH (5 -6.5).The substrate was kept in bags after inoculation with spawn for about 28 days at 22 2 .During the incubation period, the inoculated bags were exposed to light for about 8 hours daily and the humidity was maintained between 80 -90% with the help of a humidifier.After the incubation period of 28 to 30 days, pinheads appeared and the bags were cut open with the help of a sterilized knife.The complete process took about 30 to 35 days to get a good and healthy yield.Ultimately, the biological efficiency was determined by measuring the weight of mushrooms obtained per bag.This study can help to enhance the mushroom growth rate and production yield to fulfil increasing food demands.