FEASIBILITY OF USING USEFUL BACTERIA TO ENHANCE THE GROWTH OF EDIBLE MUSHROOMS UNDER DIFFERENT CLIMATIC CONDITIONS

Abstract

Mushroom is one of the man’s earliest foods which have come to be recognized as highly nutritive food, low in calories, but rich in proteins and certain vitamins. A distinctive feature of mushroom protein is that it comprises of all the essential amino acids and has highly digestible value. The vitamins of mushrooms are not destroyed by cooking, drying and freezing. Mushroom has been used as a food and medicine by different civilizations since immemorial time, due to its delicious taste and dietetic qualities. Development of mushroom industry was stimulated in 1960, with the establishment of laboratories for research on the mushroom. Such development was established not only in U.S.A and Europ but also in Jaban, Tiwan and Korea. Improved technologies on the use of mushroom growing houses and use of pure culture spawn increased production of the mushroom world wide 1. In vitro experiments Five different bacterial strains namely, Peanibacillus polymyxa (AT13), Bacillus circulans (SD6), Bacillus megaterium (PSB), Azotobacter chroococcum (A101) and Pseudomonas flourescens (Ps1) were tested for their antagonistic activity against eight edible mushroom strains namely Straphoria rugoso-annulate, Pleurotus sajor-caju, Auricularia. sp, Lentinula edodes, Vollvariella volvacea. Pleurotus eryngii, Pleurotus ostreatus and Pleurotus florida. Most of the bacterial strains showed antagonistic among all the treatments except Peanibacillus polymyxa with P. eryngii, P. ostreatus and Ps. flourescens with P. florida which reveals no antagonistic effect between each pair of them. Selected bacterial strains Peani. polymyxa and Ps. flourescens were examined for some biological activities such as nitrogenase activity, phosphate solubilization, potassium mobilization, production of indole acetic acid(IAA), gibberellic acid and cytokinins. Peani. polymyxa was able to fix atmospheric nitrogen with nitrogenase activity which estimated 3.38 µ Mole C2H4/ml/h. The highest amount of solubilized phosphate was recorded with Ps. flourescens. While the capability of potassium