CULTIVATION OF MUSHROOMS USING CROP RESIDUES AS SUBSTRATE

Cereal crop residues i.e rice straw and rice husk were used as substrate for the cultivation of oyster mushrooms (pleurotus spp.) Experiments for cultivation of P. florida and P. sajor-caju were carried out from April to October and for P. Sapidus and P. ostreatus form November to March, because required temperature and relative humidity could be easily maintained at the pilot pant of PCSIR Laboratories, Lahore, Pakistan.\ud \ud Rice straw was found to be a better substrate than rice husk because it gave 29 to 48% higher yield by different oyster mushrooms species. Maximum yield )51.5 to 72.3 %) was obtained when an optimum amount of rice straw i.e. 1.5 kg/ tray (52x38x10 cm) was used for cultivation of different species of oyster mushrooms. Further increase in the amount of substrate to 2 kg/ tray, decreased the average yield by 11-16%. Supplementation of rice straw with different nitrogen source like ‘Lobia’ (Vigna cajang), corn gluten meal and leaf protein concentrate increased the yield of mushrooms form 72.3 to 83.5 % whereas ammonium sulphate, ammonium nitrate, urea and mustard seed meal suppressed or inhibited the growth of mushrooms sporophores. Scaling up of the mushrooms cultivation from 1.5 kg rice straw/ tray to 1.8 kg/ tower (120cm long, 70 cm diameter) and double layer spawning method improved the yield of crop by 4-5 %.\ud \ud Proximate analysis showed that oyster mushrooms contained 25.24 to 36.35 % protein, 1.53 to 1.95 % fat, matter basis. PCSIR Model dehydrator was found more efficient than U.S.A Chamber type dehydrator because it reduced the moisture content of the mushrooms to safer limit (5.83%) in shorter time i.e. 96 hours. Preservation of mushrooms by freeze drying, hot air drying, pickling in oil or vinegar showed non-significant change in their composition. Freeze dried mushrooms on dehydration attained physical characteristics closer to the fresh mushrooms whereas hot dried samples were slightly inferior in quality. The pickles in oil showed similar acceptability as reference material i.e mango pickles\ud \ud Feeding trails on albino rats showed that net protein utilization values of isonitrogenous experimental control diets, containing P. florida, P. sajor-caju, P. sapidus, P. ostreatus and casein, were 20.0, 29.40, 16.15, 35.20 and 73.25 % whereas protein efficiency ratio were 0.44, 0.87, -0.64, -0.64 and 2.53 respectively. The experimental diets showed true digestibility of 52.42 to 82.00 % and biological value of 30.81 to 42.68 %.\ud \ud Fortification of traditional Pakistan dishes with oyster mushrooms (P. Ostreatus) increased the protein contents from 4.29 to 93.33% maximum being in ‘allu Kabab’ and minimum in lamb liver. Organoleptic evaluation showed that all the dishes after fortification with mushroom, were readily acceptable.\ud \ud The propagation of different oyster mushrooms on rice straw its protein contents form 1.72 to 10.63 % and decreased the crude fibre, cellulose and lignin from 32.57 to 16.32 %, 35.02 to 17.84 % and 10.92 to 8.25 respectively. Recticulorumen digestibility of dry matter cellulose , minerals and protein of the biodegraded straw was enhanced from 3.6.99 to 51.94 %, 49.88 to 72.09% 20.14 to 33.27 % and 31.37 to 31.37 to 50.75% respectively over the non-degraded rice straw