Steps in Mushroom Cultivation

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Mushrooms is unique creature in the living world cannot be classified neither plant nor animal. It has become one of human food sources. There has been recent finding of interest in mushroom not only as a health vegetable which rich in protein but it also important as sources of biologically active compound of medical value. Based on Ooi & Liu (2000) schizophyllan from S. commune and lentinan, an interferon-stimulating polysaccharide produced by L. edodes are products that have been isolated from mushroom to make anti-cancer drugs. Nowadays, mushroom cultivation has become one of agronomic generating activity which can be applied to the small industry farmer. Therefore in order to cultivated the mushroom there are several steps known as preparing medium culture, spawn preparation, medium substrate preparation, spawning, spawn running, fructification and harvesting (refer to the Figure 1 in Appendix 1).
The first steps in mushroom cultivation are preparation of culture media. Mushroom mycelium needs nutrition to grow. Agar (seaweed) contains almost no nutrition, but acts as a gelling agent when mixed with water, so that the mycelium has a flat, solid surface to grow. A combination of agar, water, and nutritional substance gives a satisfactory method for growing out healthy mycelium (Ogden & Prowse, 2004). The mycelium grows on the surface of the medium will later be used to inoculate larger amounts of substrates like grain. Test tubes or Petri dishes used as culture containers. Young and vigorous mycelium obtained from a young fruiting body of a mushroom. The mycelium should be white and grow out from the tissue. If yellow, blue, green, or grey mycelia form on other places on the surface, then these are fungal contaminants. A cre...

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Ogden, A. & Prowse, K. (2004). How to make oyster mushroom grain spawn in a simple way. In R. Gush (Ed.), Mushroom growers’ handbook 1 (pp. 62-74). Seoul, Korea: Mush World. Retrieved from http://www.fungifun.org/mushworld/Oyster-Mushroom-Cultivation/mushroom-growers-handbook-1-mushworld-com-chapter-4-1.pdf

Ooi, V. E.C, & Liu, F. (2000). Immunomodulation and anti-cancer activity of polysaccharide-protein complexes. Current medicinal chemistry, 7(7), 715-729. Retrieved from http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ben/cmc/2000/00000007/00000007/art00004

Shah, Z. A., Ashraf, M., & Ishtiaq, C. M. (2004). Comparative study on cultivation and yield performance of oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus) on different substrates (wheat straw, leaves, sawdust). Pakistan Journal of Nutrition, 3(3), 158-160.

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