Studies on incidence of spawn contaminants and economic losses in spawn production of button mushroom, Agaricus bisporus

摘要

Quality spawn is one of the most important deciding factor for obtaining optimum yield of button mushroom. The present study was undertaken at HAIC Agro R&D Centre, Murthal to find out the total losses caused by major fungal and bacterial contaminantsduring spawn production of Agaricus bisporus in the years 2005-06,2006-07 and 2007-08. Contaminants from affected spawn bags were isolated and identified. Percent contamination by individual contaminant (moulds and bacteria) ranged between 2.6% to 39.3%. In three years, Penicillium sp. contributed to maximum spoilage (39.3%) followed by Mucor sp. (25.9%), Aspergillus sp. (14.7%), Rhizopus sp. (12.7%) and Dehliomyces sp. (4.9%). Minimum spoilage (2.6%) was due to the Bacillus sp. All these six species of contaminants contributed to 7.8% spoilage of the total spawn bags during three years and caused losses to the tune of approximately Rs seven lakhs.