Yield performance of Brown Oyster Mushroom (Pleurotus cystidiosus) using different liming materials

Abstract

Mushroom industry is still burgeoning in the Philippines and has high demand both in local and world markets. However, there are yet to be studied on the matter of cultivation substrates which production is at stake. To cultivate mushrooms, the raw materials mainly are agricultural by-products which, at times are unavailable in certain areas particularly the liming material needed. Different by-products were evaluated as potential alternative liming material for brown oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus) cultivation in fruiting bags. The Complete Random Design (CRD) was used to lay out the experiment with five treatments (T1–no liming material, T2 – with filter cake), T3 – with rice hull ash), T4 – with agricultural lime), and T5 – with wood ash). These potential liming materials assessed on their influence on mycelia growth, yield, number of stipes (stem), and pileus (cap) diameter. The research revealed significant differences in mycelia growth, pileus (cap) diameter and yield and found no significance on the number of stipes (stem). Significant difference was observed in mycelia growth from Treatment 2 when compared to T1, T3, T4, and T5 respectively. The treatment using agricultural lime (T4) yield was found highly significant to T3, T2, T5 and T1 with a mean yield of 1,307.00 g, 1,291.00 g, 1,037.10 g and 770.04 g respectively. Moreover, T3, T2, T5 are not par with each other. Analysis of variance on pileus (cap) diameter showed significant differences among Treatment means where T4 is significantly different with T2, T3, and T5 but showed no significance on T3, T4, and T5. For the number of stipes (stem), the experiment revealed no significance among treatment means. Of and among the treatments, the treatment using agricultural lime still performs best as the package of technology on oyster mushroom cultivation standardized it so. Nevertheless, this research output claims the utilization of the liming material alternatives especially when the agricultural lime is unavailable.