Nutritional Analysis of Some Composted and Non-Composted Agricultural Substrates used for Production of Kenyan Native Wood Ear Mushrooms [ Auricularia auricula (L. Ex Hook.) Underw.]

摘要

Wood ear mushrooms [ Auricularia auricula (L. ex Hook.) Underw.] native to Kenya were cultivated on composted and non composted agro-wastes. The wastes included maize cobs, sawdust, sugarcane baggase grass straw and wheat straw each supplemented with wheat or rice bran at a ratio of 80:20. Both the composted and non composted substrates and supplements were nutritionally analyzed to determine their lignin, ash, cellulose, crude protein and moisture content . The cultivation experiment was arranged in a Completely Randomized Design (CRD) and replicated three times. Data was collected on days to pinning, fruit body quality, fruit body yield (fresh weight) and biological efficiency. The data collected was subjected to analysis of variance using SAS version 9.1. Mean separation was done using LSD and effects declared significant at 5% level. The substrates and supplements were significantly (p<0.05) different in their nutritional content with maize cobs and wheat bran containing higher cellulose, crude protein and moisture content . Remarkably, the dark brown strain had significantly (p<0.05) higher productivity factors on composted maize cobs supplemented with wheat bran. Saw dust and rice bran gave significantly the lowest growth performance on all the strains.