Cultivation of oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus) using spawn run on low cost substrates in Sri Lanka

Pleurotus ostreatus is an edible mushroom, commercially important, predominantly grown variety and widely cultivated in small scale for self-employment in Sri Lanka. Successful mushroom cultivation depends on reliable spawn and good substrate. Most of the growers in mid country buy the reliable spawn from Department of Agriculture (DOA), Peradeniya. Therefore, this experiment was carried out to find out the possibility of using the grower produce spawn run as the initial planting material and to identify the suitable substrate for production of oyster mushroom for the new method. The experiment was conducted for two seasons in the mushroom unit, University Experimental Station, Dodangolla. 5 g of spawn of oyster mushroom for treatments 1 and 3, and 10 g of spawn run for treatments 2 and 4 were used as the planting material. The saw dust substrate for treatments 1 and 2 and the paddy substrate for treatments 3 and 4 were used in polypropylene bags. No significant difference was observed among treatments on spawn runing and pin head formation. A significant difference was observed between the two substrates used in this experiment for the time taken for the first harvest and the total harvest. This study revealed that spawn and spawn run can be use as a planting material and they have no significant impact on duration of spawn runing and pin head formation. In contrast the paddy straw was a better substrate compared to saw dust, which had a great impact on growth and gave the first harvest within 29-30 days. The total harvest was also significantly higher in paddy straw substrate compared to saw dust. Since there was no significant yield difference between the spawn and spawn run treatments the growers will be able to save a rupee from each bag.