Abstract:
Two crops of Pleurotus ostreatus were grown on rice straw as the basal substrate. In crop I,
rice straw was mixed at spawning with 0%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% of banana leaves or
Leucaena leucocephala or maize bran or maize cobs. In crop II, rice straw was
supplemented at spawning with 0%, 1%, 2%, 3%, 4%, and 5% of sunflower or cotton seed
cake. Mushroom yield (1,040.0 g) and Biological efficiency (BE) (98.5%) were greater on a
50/50 mixture of rice straw and banana leaves. Rice straw supplemented with 2% sunflower
seed hulls (yield 1,087.5 g, BE 103.3%) gave similar yield and BE to rice straw supplemented
with 2% cotton seed hulls (yield 1,073.8 g, BE 101.8%), and were significantly greater than (p
< 0.001) other supplement ratios. By comparison, mushroom yield on banana leaves were
786.5 g, on rice straw were 582.5 g, on Leucaena leucocephala were 534.5 g, on maize cobs
were 468.5 g, on rice bran were 406.0 g and on maize bran were 305.3 g. The largest
mushrooms (21.0 g) were obtained from non-supplemented rice straw.
