Preliminary Studies on the Screening of Substrates for Spawn Production and Cultivation of Indigenous Strain of Lentinus sajor-caju (Fr.) Fr.

Lentinus sajor-caju (Fr.)Fr. is a lignicolous edible basidiomycetous mushroom.The sporophores of this mushroom are valuable health food with high nutritional and nutraceutical properties.The work presented in this manuscript pertains to the screening of substrate for spawn production and cultivation of indigenous strain of L. sajor-caju collected from North West India.In this paper, the vegetative growth of L. sajor-caju on seven different substrates and reproductive growth on six different ligno-cellulosic substrates have been evaluated.As in other mushrooms, wheat grains supported the maximum mycelia growth amongst the evaluated substrates.L. sajor-caju, when grown on six different ligno-cellulosic substrates, gave maximum biological efficiency (56.06%) on paddy straw substrate on fresh weight basis which was far better in comparison to 44.55% biological efficiency obtained on wheat straw substrate.