Nutritional and physiological requirements of different strains of C. indica for growth and biomass production

Abstract

Milky mushroom (Calocybe indica) is a new addition to the domestic mushroom and next to paddy straw mushroom. Fungi are cultivated worldwide for the production of edible mushrooms. Among the cultivated mushroom, milky mushroom (Calocybe indica P&C) is a potentially new species to the world mushroom growers. It is a robust, fleshy, milky white, umbrella like mushroom, which resembles button mushroom. The experiments was conducted to explore the role of different temperatures, media, relative humidity, light duration and pH on growth and biomass of different strain (CI-1, CI-2, CI-3, CI-4 and CI-5) of C. indica. There was significant difference observed in radial growth, fresh mycelia and dry mycelia weight of C. indica on different media under study. The highest radial growth (87.00 mm), fresh mycelia weight (5.87g) and dry mycelia weight (0.39 g) of C. indica was noticed on potato dextrose agar medium and potato dextrose liquid medium. Temperature significantly influenced the radial growth of C. indica and significantly high (87.26 mm) radial growth of C. indica was recorded at 25°C but more fresh (3.83g) and dry (0.50g.) mycelia weight of C. indica was recorded at 28 °C. Maximum mycelium growth (85.93 mm), fresh and dry biomass (5.55 g, 0.53 g) was observed at 90 and 80% relative humidity. The radial growth (72.60 mm), fresh and dry biomass (3.77g, 0.54) production was more at pH 6 than other tested pH. Higher mycelia growth (87.40 mm) fresh and dry biomass (6.40 g, 0.34g) was obtained when light was provided alternate cycle of 12 hr. dark and light.