Studies on Morphological Variability of Oyster mushroom

Abstract

The oyster mushroom, (Pieurotus florida, Pleurotus sapidus, Pleurotus sajor . caju) are well known edible species. It is being taken up for commercial cultivation in different parts of the world. There is great potential for increasing mushroom production in the country because of favourable climatic conditions, unemployment and abundant supply of cheap labour and availability of a wide range of substrates which considerably reduces its production cost. Three species of Pleurotus viz., P. sajor caju, P. florida and P. sapidus were observed for variability in terms of colony characters, cultural characters and yield performance. The colonies are appressed and were observed among all the three species of Pleurotus i.e. P.sajor caju, P. florida and P. sapidus.The colony colour of P.sajor caju was observed as white , P. florida was observed as creamy white and P. sapidus was observed as shiny milky white. The average pileus breadth, stipe length and pileus weight were observed maximum in P. sapidus followed by P. florida and P.sajor caju. At 7.0 pH species of Pleurotus showed maximum radial growth of P.sajor caju and P.sapidus followed by P.florida on PDA. For spawn preparation CaC03 & CaS04 in 0.25:1 .2 ratio and Wheat and Jowar grain was most suitable. Maximum yield obtained at 6% spawn rate on wet weight basis in all Pleurotus species i.e. sajor caju, florida and sapidus