Evaluation of the Quality of the Vermicompost from the Exhausted Substrate of Pleurotus spp. through the Analysis of the Nematological Population and of the Arthropodofauna

In the last decades the cultivation of mushrooms of the genus Pleurotus has spread more and more, raising the problem of the disposal of crops waste material. An economically and ecologically advantageous possibility could be that of transforming this material into organic vermicompost to be used in agriculture. In the present work the exhausted residue (Spent Mushroom Substrate = SMS) of a cultivation of Pleurotus eryngii, P. ostreatus, P. cornucopiae and P. nebrodensis was transformed into vermicompost. To evaluate the quality of the vermicompost obtained, the nematological community and the artropodofauna were analyzed both of the exhausted material and of the final vermicompost with methods and indices typical of the evaluation of the soil quality, as the principles on which these methodologies are based make them usable for measuring the quality of any type of substrate. The results obtained in these studies showed in the vermicompost the presence of a reacher nematological population and of an arthropodofauna greatly adapted to soil life, what indicates that the vermicompost obtained from the exhausted substrate of Pleurotus spp. has characteristics suitable for soil enrichment and can therefore be used as soil fertilizer in agriculture.