Suitability of various spawn and different substrate on the sporophore yield of multispore isolates of Pleurotus spp.

Abstract

Mushrooms have achieved significant importance in many countries due to their high nutritive and genuine medicinal values as well as an income generative venture. Blessed with varied agro-climates, Indian weather is aptly suitable for the cultivation of edible mushrooms. Among the spawn substrates tested, “panivaragu” grains was not found suitable for the production of spawn as it recorded the lowest yield in all the isolates. With regard to various isolates tested, the spawn of the isolate Pe x Po prepared by using IFPg required minimum spawn run days (10.45) and produced the maximum yield (585.10 g/bed) and bio-efficiency (117.02 %) which was followed by Pc x Pe, Pc x Pfl, Pf x Po and P. eous(standard parent) in the decreasing order of merit. Among the isolates the minimum days for the first harvest (11.13 days) and maximum yield (635.00 g/bed) was observed with the isolate Pe x Po with paddy straw used as bed substrate. This was followed by paddy straw + sugarcane trash with a yield of 405.67 g/bed. It is evident from the result that there was considerable fluctuation in sporophore yield and biological efficiency with different isolates studied. The weight of sporophore was significantly low in other substrates. A similar trend was observed with other yield parameters tested.