Oil palm empty bunches as a growing media for white oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus)

Abstract

The media used to grow oyster mushrooms is sawdust waste, such as sengon, gmelina, and candlenut. Therefore, several researchers conducted research to find alternative media to replace sawdust, such as mulberry pulp, sago pulp, coconut fibre, and bamboo pulp. This research utilizes waste of oil palm empty bunches as a medium used to grow oyster mushrooms. In addition, this study aims to determine the duration of immersion of oil palm empty bunches as a pre-treatment before being used as a growing medium for white oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus). Before being used as a medium, empty fruit bunches of oil palm are cut into small pieces and then made into powder. The stages in this research are mixing raw materials, composting, making baglog, sterilization, inoculation, incubation, maintenance, and harvesting. There were seven treatments applied in this study, namely immersion in cold water for five days (P1), for seven days (P2), and nine days (P3); immersion in 100 °C hot water for 1 hour (P4), for 2 hours (P5), and 3 hours (P6); without immersion or control (P7). The results obtained are empty oil palm fruit bunches with cold soaking for five days (P1) and hot soaking at 100 °C for two hours can be used as a medium for oyster mushroom cultivation.