Waterhyacinth (

Eichhornia crassipes

(Mart.) Solms.) was

evaluated at ratios of 25, 50 and 75% with paddy straw (

Oryza

sativa

L.) for oyster mushroom (

Pleurotus sajor-caju)

cultivation.

There was an increase in yield with decreasing ratio

waterhyacinth

Ganesan, M.

Gopalakrishnan, A.

Nageswaran, M.

Vedhamurthy, A.

English

Aquatic Commons

 122
 
J. Aquat. Plant Manage.
 
 41: 2003.
 
Evaluation of Waterhyacinth and Paddy Straw 
Waste for Culture of Oyster Mushrooms
 
M. NAGESWARAN
 
1
 
, A. GOPALAKRISHNAN
 
2
 
, M. GANESAN
 
2, 
 
A. VEDHAMURTHY
 
2
 
 AND E. SELVAGANAPATHY
 
3
 
ABSTRACT
 
Waterhyacinth (
 
Eichhornia crassipes
 
 (Mart.) Solms.) was
evaluated at ratios of 25, 50 and 75% with paddy straw (
 
Oryza
sativa
 
 L.) for oyster mushroom (
 
Pleurotus sajor-caju)
 
 cultiva-
tion. There was an increase in yield with decreasing ratio
waterhyacinth. Waterhyacinth is the only growth substrate re-
sulted in very poor yield. However, there was an increase in
yield of 276 g with an addition of 25% waterhyacinth with
paddy straw compared to an increase of 231 g in pure paddy
straw. An average size of 38 cm
 
2
 
 and weight of 5.5 g for indi-
vidual mushrooms were the highest with the addition of 50%
waterhyacinth plants to paddy straw.
 
Key words:
 
 
 
Pleurotus sajor-caju
 
, utilization of aquatic weeds,
oyster mushroom
 
 
 
and mushroom biological efficiency, pro-
tein production, 
 
Eichhornia crassipes, Oryza sativa
 
.
 
INTRODUCTION
 
Cuddalore district in the Tamil Nadu state in India has an
abundance of waterhyacinth. This weed adversely affects the
human and animals, waterways, and agriculture by covering
the ponds and lakes and lowering dissolved oxygen in the wa-
ter bodies. In African countries, waterhyacinth is used as sup-
plementary substrate for oyster mushroom production
(Tagwira et al. 1998). They have reported an addition of 10%
waterhyacinth supplement to a substration of sawdust and
groundnut shells increased oyster mushroom production by
250% and 221%, respectively.
Paddy straw is available abundantly in Cuddalore region
in Tamil Nadu in India. In this study, we used waterhyacinth
as a supplement to paddy straw to evaluate this aquatic plant
on the production of oyster mushroom.
 
MATERIALS AND METHODS
 
Studies were conducted during January to March 2002 in
the field office of M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation
located at Keelamanagudi village in Chidambaram taluk of
Cuddalore district of Tamil Nadu in India. Paddy is the most
important food crop of the world and grown in a wide range
of environment. In paddy fields, rice is harvested with me-
chanical harvester and the panicle together with a portion of
the stem is removed.
Paddy straw serves as a major source of cattle feed in south
India and was used as substrate in combination with waterhy-
acinth for oyster mushroom culture. The study was complete
randomized block design with four replications. Treatments
consisted of waterhyacinth alone, paddy straw alone, 75%
waterhyacinth plus 25% paddy straw, 50% waterhyacinth plus
50% paddy straw and 25% waterhyacinth plus 75% paddy
straw. Oyster mushroom cultivation was conducted as sug-
gested by Krishnamurthy et al. (2000). Both waterhyacinth
and paddy straw were chopped into section 2 to 5 cm long,
soaked overnight in clean, fresh water. After draining excess
water, water hyacinth was mixed at 25, 50 and 75% levels with
paddy straw as per the treatment and boiled for 2 hours,
strained, cooled and dried for 24 hours under shade. The
processed plant material was used as a substrate for the culti-
vation of oyster mushrooms. Beds were prepared in poly bags
with dimensions of 60 cm by 30 cm. The open end of each
bag was tied with a rubber band after adjusting the weight
with substrate to 2 kg. Each bag was punctured with 25 holes.
The bags were placed in a cropping room where the relative
humidity was maintained above 80% and bags sprinkled with
 
1
 
Corresponding Author, Scientist, JRD Tata Ecotechnology Centre, M. S.
Swaminathan Research Foundation, 3
 
rd
 
 Cross street, Taramani Institutional
Area, Chennai-600 113, Tamil Nadu, India.
 
2
 
Scientist, JRD Tata Ecotechnology Centre, M. S. Swaminathan Research
Foundation, 3
 
rd
 
 Cross street, Taramani Institutional Area, Chennai-600 113,
Tamil Nadu, India.
 
3
 
Technical Assistant, Field Office, M. S. Swaminathan Research Founda-
tion, Keelamanagudi village, Chidambaram (Tk), Cuddalore (Dt.)-608 501
Tamil Nadu, India. Received for publication February 3, 2003 and in revised
form June 4, 2003.
 
J. Aquat. Plant Manage.
 
 41: 122-123
 J. Aquat. Plant Manage.
 
 41: 2003. 123
water twice a day. Mature fruiting bodies were removed from
the bags and weighed when they grew to a harvestable size.
Yield was calculated as fresh weight of mushrooms fruiting
bodies produced per kg dry substrate. Biological efficiency
was determined by the ratio of fresh mushrooms harvested
to the substrate dry weight used in the study.
Total carbon and nitrogen were estimated as suggested by
Tandon (1993) in the substrates before and after harvest.
The collected data were subjected to statistically analysis as
per the methods suggested by Gomez and Gomez (1996).
 
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
 
Harvesting of oyster mushrooms began within 13 days in
the waterhyacinth alone substrate treatment (Table 1). For
the paddy straw alone, oyster mushrooms were harvested af-
ter 17 days. The combination of waterhyacinth plus paddy
straw resulted in harvests times between the 13 and 17 days
times. The substrate of waterhyacinth and 50% waterhya-
cinth plus 50% paddy straw were suitable substrates for early
harvests compared to other substrates tested. Oyster mush-
rooms were harvested eight times from waterhyacinth alone
substrate whereas only six to seven harvests were made in the
remaining substrates, but no statistical differences were cal-
culated for the treatments. The yield data showed that the
substrate of 25% waterhyacinth in combination with 75%
paddy straw gave a significantly higher oyster mushroom pro-
duction of 276 g followed by paddy straw alone as compared
to the other treatments. The lowest yield was obtained in
75% waterhyacinth in combination with 25% paddy straw
substrate. The size and weight of individual oyster mush-
rooms were not different for the various substrates. Biologi-
cal efficiency was determined as the percentage conversion
of dry substrate to oyster mushroom fresh weight, but there
were no differences among the treatments.
Biochemical analysis of the substrates used for the culture
of oyster mushroom revealed that the highest carbon and ni-
trogen content were recorded in paddy straw as compared to
the other substrates (Table 2). Carbon and nitrogen content of
the paddy straw decreased after harvest compared to pre-har-
vest sample. In the case of waterhyacinth the levels of carbon
and nitrogen were essentially the same after harvest as before.
This study shows that waterhyacinth can be mixed with
paddy straw at the ratio of 25:75 for production of oyster
mushrooms. By using waterhyacinth plants to produce oyster
mushrooms aquatic weed problems could be reduced to
some extent. Local villagers need to be motivated to make
use of waterhyacinth plants as a substrate in combination
with paddy straw for cultivation of oyster mushrooms as the
oyster mushrooms provide an inexpensive source of protein
for human consumption.
 
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
 
The authors are grateful to Drs. K. Balasubramanian and
S-P. Palaniyappan, JRD Tata Ecotechnology Centre of M. S.
Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai, Tamil Nadu,
India for critically going through the manuscript and sugges-
tions and also wish to thank Mr. S. Sekar for his kind help in
biochemical analysis.
 
LITERATURE CITED
 
Gomez, A. K. and A. A. Gomez. 1996. Statistical Procedures for Agricultural
Research. 2
 
nd
 
 Ed., John Wiley & Sons, Inc., NY. p. 8-20.
Krishnamurthy, A. S., C. Nakkeeran, V. Prakasam and T. Marimuthu. 2000.
Mushroom Cultivation. 1
 
st
 
 Ed., Prathipa Pathipagam, Coimbatore
 
.
 
Tandon, H. L. S. 1993. Methods of analysis of soils, plant, water and fertil-
izer. Fertilizers development and consultation organization, New Delhi.
15-16, and p. 54-56.
Tagwira, A., A. Mphuru, S. T. Chang, A. Mswaka, G. Pauli and K. Mshigeni.
1998. Effect of supplementing substrates with water hyacinth for mush-
room production. http://www.zeri.org/news/1998/november/nov98.
htm, ZeriNews letter, November 1998.
T
 
ABLE
 
 1. G
 
ROWTH
 
, 
 
YIELD
 
 
 
OF
 
 
 
OYSTER
 
 
 
MUSHROOMS
 
 
 
WITH
 
 
 
DIFFERENT
 
 
 
RATIOS
 
 
 
OF
 
 
 
WATERHYACINTH
 
 
 
AND
 
 
 
PADDY
 
 
 
STRAW
 
.
Substrate (%)
Days until
first harvest
Number of
times harvested
Yield/kg
substrate (g)
Size of individual 
mushroom (cm
 
2
 
)
Individual 
mushroom
weight (g)
Biological 
efficiency (%)Waterhyacinth Paddy straw
100 0 13 8.0 182 28.3 4.6 65
0 100 17 6.5 231 33.1 3.7 69
75 25 16 6.0 154 32.4 4.8 52
50 50 14 7.5 225 37.6 5.5 73
25 75 16 6.5 276 36.9 5.0 85
C.D. at 5% 0.99 NS 74 NS NS NS
C.D. = Critical Difference.
T
 
ABLE
 
 2. A
 
NALYSIS
 
 
 
OF
 
 
 
SUBSTRATE
 
 
 
FOR
 
 
 
CARBON
 
 
 
AND
 
 
 
NITROGEN
 
.
Substrate (%) Before harvest After harvest
Waterhyacinth Paddy straw C (%) N (%) C (%) N (%)
100 0 29 2.5 30 2.6
0 100 48 4.2 29 2.5
75 25 32 2.7 29 2.5
50 50 36 3.1 24 2.0
25 75 43 3.6 26 2.2
C.D. at 5% 1 0.2 NS NS
C.D. = Critical Difference.


Evaluation of Water hyacinth and Paddy Straw

Waste for Culture of Oyster Mushrooms

Evaluation of Waterhyacinth and Paddy Straw

Waste for Culture of Oyster Mushrooms

http://aquaticcommons.org/1795/1/v41p122.pdf

Evaluation of Waterhyacinth and Paddy Straw Waste for Culture of Oyster Mushrooms

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