Mushroom Cultivation Techniques And Applications

Mushrooms have been known as an ideal vegetarian food item that is enriched with essential amino acids, minerals, vitamins, pharmaceutical properties, low in fat, low in carbohydrates and an efficient tool for management of agro wastes. In India, mushrooms have been used as food and medicine by some tribal communities by their traditional knowledge. However, the country like India with its diversity of mushroom (i.e. macro fungi) with huge source of agro waste can open a new door of agro industry in near future. The decreasing trend of arable land and increasing food demand necessitates food production by utilizing agro waste which is not only mitigated the stubble burning problem in agriculture based country like India but it is also provided nutrition enriched health food to combat malnutrition. Mushroom along with other microbial biomass like yeast, algae and single cell protein (SCP) are often referred to as an alternative source of supplemented health food. However, among all these mushroom cultivation is unique economically viable biotechnology for the conversion of lignocellulosic agro waste materials into high quality nutritious food. In recent times, mushroom cultivation is gaining popularity to those growers having no or insufficient land. The identification of edible and poisonous mushrooms in wild condition is difficult as there is no instant methodology for accurate determination of safe and poisonous mushrooms. So, cultivation of edible mushroom with desire strain is important to consume mushroom safely. Processing and preservation are other important aspects of mushroom production as the shelf-life is very short. This book is aimed to reach the mushroom workers particularly student, researcher, common man, big or small growers in North East India. The Book highlights on the basics about macro fungal spawn preparation technology, laboratory equipments, cultivation technology of mushrooms etc.