Comparative Study on Cultivation of Oyster Mushrooms using Nutrition Enhancing Substrates

Abstract

Mushrooms are heterotrophic organisms which require external nutritive substrates for their growth. This study compares the efficiency of different substrates (agricultural wastes such as oil cakes, bagasse, hay, saw dust, banana leaves etc.) on growth, yield and nutritional composition of oyster mushroom-Pleurotus ostreatus. Of the 14 different substrate combinations tried in this study, only 5 combinations successfully fruited with oyster mushrooms. The test substrates Hay (H), Sawdust (S), Hay + Banana leaves (H+BL, 1:1), Sawdust + Banana leaves (S+BL, 1:1), Hay + Sawdust + Banana leaves (H+S+BL, 1:1:1) gave good yield. Supplementation with banana leaves enhanced the yield of oyster mushrooms and protein content to a great extent. Protein content in oyster mushrooms from (H+S+BL) substrate was found to be 6.09g/100g, which was significant and considerably higher compared to other test substrates. There was also significant difference in the cropping period of mushrooms produced from 5 successful test substrates, ranging from a minimum of 26 days (H+BL) to a maximum of 46 days (H). Total yield produced by (S) and (H+S+BL) was higher than other substrates. The present study demonstrates that banana leaves are also efficient as a substrate along with conventional hay and sawdust. Apart from comparing various substrates on their efficiency, this study also has shown that available agricultural residues can be efficiently used for oyster mushroom cultivation as a cost effective and ecofriendly alternative. This study has demonstrated that minimum alternate substrate inputs can give high quality and good yield of oyster mushrooms.