Impact of Inorganic Chemicals on Growth and Yield Potential of Pleurotus sajor-caju

Abstract

The experiments on Impact of Inorganic Chemicals on Growth and Yield Potential of Pleurotus sajor-caju were conducted during October–November 2018–2019 and 2019–2020 in Completely Randomized Design at Mushroom Research and Development Centre, Department of Plant Pathology, Chandra Shekhar Azad University of Agriculture and Technology, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India. Among all the treatments, minimum 11 days required for spawn running in the combination of Wheat straw+NPK 5 mg+CaCO₃ 6 mg. Similarly, the minimum number of days required for pin head formation and harvesting days were also noticed in T₅ treatment (wheat straw+5 g NPK+6 g CaCO₃), representing 15 and 20 days respectively. The treatment T₅ produced maximum number of fruiting bodies where combinations were given as wheat straw+5 g NPK+6 g CaCO₃.The maximum stipe length and width of pileus were also recorded maximum in treatment T_5, showing 7.9 cm and 13.5 cm against 2.8 cm and 6.6 cm respectively in case of control. Yield potential, total yield and biological efficiency of Pleurotus sajor-caju were also found maximum in treatment T₅, representing the values 500, 450, 370, 300 and 250 g yield bag^-1 at 1^st , 2^nd , 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th flushing stages, respectively. On the other hand, the maximum biological efficiency was recorded in T₅ (wheat straw+5 g NPK+6 g CaCO₃) treatment, showing 37.40 % against 25.68 % in case of treatment T₁ (Control). Result showing that treatment T₅ (wheat straw+5 g NPK+6 g CaCO₃) performed better than all treatments.