Influence of humidity on production of pelleted fungal inoculum

Abstract

One of the practical problems in scaling-up the production of fungal inocula for environmental applications is how to provide essential humidity for fungal growth. Pelleted solid substrate was used as a fungal biomass carrier. It was coated with alginate or agar hydrogels that contained mycelial fragments of the white-rot fungi Trametes versicolor or Irpex lacteus. To follow fungal growth and formation of mycelial coat over pelleted substrate, the fluorescein-diacetate hydrolysing activity (FDA) assay and visual inspection were used. Both fungi were able to overgrow the pelleted substrate in 5–6 days, at a relative humidity (RH) of 86.3% or higher. The enrichment of alginate hydrogel with nutrients or coating of pelleted substrate with more hydrophilic agar hydrogel enabled I. lacteus to overgrow the pellets at a lower RH of 83.6%. Fungal inocula produced at lower RH possessed lower final moisture contents and had greater mechanical strength. Conditioning of T. versicolor mycelial fragments, by a 3-h incubation in fresh growth medium, enhanced fungal growth over the pelleted substrate. A mathematical model was used to simulate and to explain moisture distribution in a hydrogel-coated pellet and the formation of mycelial coat, for various conditions of fungal inocula production.