Abstract:
The increasing population and the decreasing land size for crop cultivation throughout the world poses a serious problem to sufficient food production. The cultivation of Pleurotus mushrooms requires less elaborate technologies. The Pleurotus mushroom can adapt easily in rural areas since it can utilize farm wastes. The cultivation of Pleurotus mushroom could be an avenue to solving problems associated with deficiency of proteins, minerals and vitamins. During the last two decades, cultivation of Pleurotus mushrooms has become popular worldwide because of their desired attributes. These attributes include: the wide choice of species for cultivation under different climatic conditions, ability to grow on a variety of agricultural and industrial wastes, and their richness in culinary and nutritional values. In this paper, the importance, development and various biotechnological methods in respect to the cultivation of Pleurotus mushrooms are discussed. A simple method used by the authors for cultivation of Pleurotus florida on locally available substrate, rhodes grass (Chloris gayana L.) is also provided.
