ABSTRACT

Pleurotus tuber-regium is a unique fungus with many health and nutritional benefits. This research was carried out to evaluate the yield of Pleurotus tuber-regium, an indigenous white-rot fungus when planted in different soils and spent mushroom substrates. Four treatments used were clayey soil, sandy soil, loam soil and oyster spent substrate. The findings from this study suggested that the sclerotia of Pleurotus tuber-regium can grow when cultivated or planted in loam, clayey and sandy soil, but could not grow on oyster mushroom spent substrate. From the results, the time for primodial emergence for each sample vary, with primodia from loam soil emerging first (7.00±0.58), followed by sandy soil (12.67±0.89) and then clayey soil (15.33±0.33), for the first flush. Clayey soil samples had a low data for time of primodial emergence after the first flush (6.00±2.08). The time of primodial emergence increased as the flushes increased. There was reduction in weight and height of fruit bodies after each preceding flush. The results also confirmed that Pleurotus tuber-regium may have medicinal as well as culinary properties. Soil type did not significantly affect the quality of the fruiting bodies but however clayey soil performed best in terms of yield and vigor. The observation that spent oyster substrate did not support its growth was strange contrary to the concept that spent mushroom substrate is a soil conditioner for growing vegetables. It is suggested that it could have been an under composted substrate used in this work. This creates room for more work on this observation.