Assessment of different casing materials for use as peat alternatives in mushroom cultivation. Evaluation of quantitative and qualitative production parameters

A Pardo,J Pardo,A J De Juan

doi:10.5424/sjar/2004022-80

Abstract

In this work, various casing materials (composted pine bark, coconut fibre pith and wood fibre) have been evaluated as alternative to peat (sphagnum blonde peat and black peat) for the cultivation of mushroom. For this, both quantitative (number of mushrooms, yield, unit weight, biological efficiency and earliness) and qualitative (diameter of the sporophore, colour, dry matter, texture, proteins, soluble solids, ash and pH) production parameters were evaluated. The results obtained for the number of mushrooms, unit weight, total production, biological efficiency, diameter of the sporophore, colour, dry matter, protein, soluble solid and ash content, and pH, differed among the three mushroom strains considered. The greatest proportion of harvested mushrooms were of medium size for all strains and casing layers considered. No significant differences were observed in colour and texture among the casing types.

Highlights

The mushroom Agaricus bisporus (Lange) Imbach is the most widely cultivated fungus in Spain and throughout the world, where it is grown commercially in at least 80 countries
The fruit bodies appear on the casing material which is used to cover the compost after the germination phase in order to induce the transition from vegetative to productive growth
In Experiment 3, this treatment showed a significant difference with soil+sphagnum peat

Summary

Introduction

The mushroom Agaricus bisporus (Lange) Imbach is the most widely cultivated fungus in Spain and throughout the world, where it is grown commercially in at least 80 countries. We analysed five casing materials (soil+sphagnum peat, soil+black peat, soil+pine bark, soil+coconut fibre pith and soil+wood fibre), looking at quantitative (number of mushrooms, yield, unit weight, biological efficiency and earliness) and qualitative (diameter of the sporophore, colour, dry matter, texture, proteins, soluble solids, ash and pH) production parameters. In Experiment 1 the greatest number of mushrooms was obtained using soil+coconut fibre, the difference was only significant between this mixture and soil+wood fibre.

Results

Conclusion