Evaluation of Different Leaf Litters for Oyster Mushroom (Pleurotus Ostreatus) Cultivation in Nekemte City, Western Ethiopia

Tadesse Gelano

doi:10.7176/jnsr/11-13-05

Abstract

Cultivation of mushrooms using locally available substance is a very cheap and environmentally friendly alternative for producing foods with high nutritional value. The consumption and familiarity of mushrooms to people has been limited in Ethiopia largely due to poor knowledge on the methods of production. The aim of this study was to evaluate different locally available leaf litters and their combinations for their productivity and biological efficiency (BE) for cultivation of an edible mushroom strain, oyster ( Pleurotus ostreatus ); in Nekemte, east Wollega, Ethiopia between January, 2017 and September, 2017. An experiment was conducted to cultivate edible mushroom ( Pleurotus ostreatus ) using four different leaf litters: namely, Cordia africana , Croton macrostachyus , Catha edulis and Eucalyptus camaldulensis and their combinations to determine their biological efficiency for the selected mushroom species.The results showed that, mycelial extension, the highest and lowest mean value 0.521 cm/day and 0.323 cm were measured from Catha edulis and combination of Catha edulis, Croton macrostachyus and Cordia africana , respectively. The results revealed that differences in mean incubation periods and duration of pinning-to-maturation, pileus diameter, and stipe length were insignificant (p>0.05) among substrates. The first pinning took 34.66 days, followed by 9.66 to 10.66 days between different flushes. Mean durations from pinning-to-maturation ranged from 3.66 to 4.33 days. The mean pileus diameter of mushrooms ranged from 4.77 to 5.03 cm, whereas the mean stipe length ranged from 1.98 to 2.16 cm. In this study, the highest biological efficiency for the studied mushroom species was recorded from Croton macrostachyus leaf litter ((94.45%) followed by Eucalpytus camaldulis leaf litters (89.72%). All the substrates that gave over 50% BE could be recommended for oyster mushroom cultivation. The findings generally suggest that the mushrooms species when grown on locally available leaf litters may have the potential to solve the problem of food insecurity in Ethiopia and can also create job opportunity to youngsters. Keywords : Biological efficiency, Edible mushrooms, Spawn, Substrates DOI: 10.7176/JNSR/11-13-05 Publication date: July 31 st 2020

Highlights

One of the world’s biggest challenges is food insecurity
White mycelia invasion of Pleurotus ostreatus was observed on sorghum after 21-25 days of incubation (Figure 2b) and was ready to be used for the inoculation of the solid substrate
Catha edulis (Ce) showed the fastest mycelial extension followed by Eucalpytus camaldulis (Ec)

Summary

Introduction

One of the world’s biggest challenges is food insecurity This problem is largely common in low and middleincome countries that mainly have poor food production systems and suffer from serious malnutrition. Such countries must find ways of improving food production to feed the vastly increasing human population (Gume et al, 2013) and mushroom cultivation could be a possible option to alleviate poverty and develop the life style of the vulnerable people. Medicinal and poisonous species and are nature’s gift as they are protein rich foods for human beings. They are fleshy, spore bearing reproductive structures of fungi. Wild edible mushrooms have played an important role as a human food (Chang and Miles, 2004)

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