Evaluation of shiitake production possibility on agricultural wastes and their effect on yield and biological efficiency

Edible shiitake mushroom is a relatively fragrant mushroom and grows on different types of dead hard woods. This mushroom ranks second in the world in total yearly mushroom production. On the hand, thousand tons of agricultural wastes are burned or discarded yearly. Hence, to evaluate the shiitake mushroom production possibility on agricultural wastes, an experiment designed based on completely randomized design with three replications. In this study, barley straw, millet straw and wheat straw used as main substrate with 10 and 20 percentage, respectively. The results showed that the highest biological efficiency were observed on barley straw (88.14 percent) and wheat straw with 20 percent sawdust (83.37 percent), respectively and the lowest biological efficiency were obtained on wheat straw (26.48 percent). In addition to, the highest yield was occurred on barley straw (25.28g/500g wet weight of substrate). However, the lowest yield observed on wheat straw (5.27g/500g wet weight of substrate), respectively. In general, the results showed that yield and biological efficiency of shiitake, on the barley and millet straw had increased as the level of sawdust boosted.