Abstract
The potential applicability of bamboo in the sawdust based cultivation substrate of Pleurotus ostreatus was evaluated using bamboo sawdust with/without aging treatment. Regarding with cultivation period, the complementary relationship in untreated bamboo sawdust and aged bamboo sawdust was observed between required days for spread medium by mycelium and the days for fruit-body after spread over medium. And accordingly almost same period was required for both cultivations in untreated bamboo sawdust and aged bamboo sawdust. The fruit-body yield in the culture substituting with 50% untreated bamboo sawdust for hardwood was significantly higher than that in control cultivation, and almost identical yields with control cultivation were observed in the cultures substituting with 25, 75, and 100% untreated bamboo sawdust. These clearly indicate that untreated bamboo sawdust is applicable as a substrate for sawdust based cultivation of P. ostreatus. To examine the effect of the aging periods on the fruit-body yield, bamboo sawdust was aging-treated for different periods (from 1 to 6 months). In the case of substitution ratio of 100% bamboo sawdust aged for 4 months, the fruit-body yield reached the maximum value which was 1.3 folds higher than that in the control cultivation. Content of alcohol-benzene extracts in bamboo sawdust was decreased a little and soluble carbohydrate was decreased considerably in the course of aging treatment. Therefore it was suggested that the increase of fruit-body yield by aging treatment was caused by other factors than these components.
