Growth of Pleurotus ostreatus on short and long composted sawdust in a controlled environment

Mushroom cultivation has been suggested as a way to help in raising standard of living of people in developing countries by providing new source of protein. The study aimed at assessing the effect of compost fermentation (long and short-composting) on fruit body of Pleurotus ostreatus using agricultural wastes such as sawdust. These agricultural and sawmill wastes pose disposal problem and cause environmental pollution because they are either burnt or left to rot openly, there dry creating health hazard. Significant increase was obtained for long composted (35 days) and short composted (9 days) substrate as well as the control as the number of days after inoculation increased. Long composted substrate (35 days) produced larger fruit bodies with significantly increase in the number of healthy fruiting bodies compared to uncomposted (control). Short composted substrate (9 days) had the least number of healthy fruit bodies; however there was no significant difference when compared
to the control. The quantities of mineral element in P. ostreatus showed a common trend of increase from long composted to the uncomposted with preponderance of potassium (K) and sodium (Na) in both composted and uncomposted substrate. This study demonstrated that increasing yield and mushroom sizes can be obtained from experimental production on
sawdust, and that it could be possible to shorten the production cycle of mushroom in order to improve the efficiency of mushroom production.