MORPHOLOGICAL RESPONSES OF KING OYSTER MUSHROOM AGAINST AUGMENTATION OF COTTON WASTE WITH CITRUS PEEL

The utilization of agro-industrial waste materials for production of mushrooms has become a crucial research precedence recently. Pleurotus eryngii is considered one of the most famous mushrooms because of nutraceutical and high nutritional value. Therefore, a study was conducted in Medicinal and Mushroom Lab to evaluate the morphological attributes of king oyster mushroom against cotton waste (CW) and citrus peel (CP) based substrates. CW alone and its different combinations with CP i.e. T0: CW (100 %), T1: CW (98%) + CP (2%), T2: CW (96%) + CP (4%), T3: CW (94%) + CP (6%), T4: CW (92%) + CP (8%) and T5: CW (90%) + CP (10%) were used in experiment. The experiment was conducted by applying 2-factor factorial under completely randomized design with 5 replications. Different morphological attributes viz. spawn running and mycelium growth initiation, duration to complete mycelium growth (days), pinhead development, pinheads/bag, duration to complete flushes (1st,2nd, 3rd), mushroom fresh weight, yield/bag and biological efficiency were calculated. Results were analyzed by ANOVA and mean values are equated by LSD test at 5% probability level. Results indicated that spawn running, the growth of mycelium, duration to complete flushes, pinhead development and duration, yield and biological efficiency all were significantly influenced by treatment T2 (CW 96% + CP 4%) as compared to control. Overall results revealed that combinations of citrus peel and cotton waste can be utilized as a promising substrate for king oyster mushroom production.