PERFORMANCE OF OYSTER MUSHROOM (PLUROTUS SAJORCAJU) ON DIFFERENT AGRICULTURAL WASTES

Abstract

A laboratory study was conducted in Completely Randomized Block Design during 2003 for comparative assessment of different agricultural wastes for the cultivation of Oyster mushroom (Pluorotus sajor caju). The Pleurotus sajor caju was successfully grown on all the agricultural wastes. However, the paddy straw resulted the highest yield (1733.60 g/bed) followed by wheat straw (1627.49 g/bed), black gram straw (1401.09 g/bed). The quickest spawn run (19.00 days), days of first harvest (24.00 days) were also recorded with paddy straw. The pleurotus sajorcaju resulted highest biological efficiency (86.62 percent) with paddy straw which was at par with wheat straw (81.39 percent) and significantly surpassed over rest of the treatments. Though the lower yield of Pleurotus sajorcaju was obtained on other agricultural wastes but their successful cultivation on all the agricultural wastes proved an economical and most viable venture. The correlation coefficient between yield and diameter of fruit was highly significant at all stages of harvest. The multiple regressions equation model Y=a+b1x1+b2x2+b3x3+b4X4 was best fitted between yield and different independent variables(X1=days of spawn run, x2=days of harvest X3=number of fruits/bed, X4=diameter of fruits) with R2 value0.85 and 0.82 at first and second harvest respectively. At third harvest the R2 value (0.67) was found insignificant. Significantly highest contribution in yield (93.84 percent) was recorded with number of fruits at first harvest. Where as at second and third harvest the highest contribution in total yield was recorded with diameter of fruits, 82.71 and 67.23 percent respectively.