Diagnosis of two local mushroom species (Pleurotus spp.) and their production management

Abstract

The present study confirmed the identity of two Iraqi mushrooms by using the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequence; the genomic DNA of two isolates was amplified using ITS1 and ITS4 primers, and the data analyzed through Basic Local Alignment Tool( BLAST) search was achieved using the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) database. The result shows that the nucleotide sequence of two mushrooms blasted against the sequence from the Gene Bank database that Pleurotus ostreatus and Pleurotus eryngii matched 99% and 100%, respectively. The second stage of the current study was the comparison of different agro-waste, including wheat straw(WS), corncob(CC) and sawdust(SD) supplemented with 25% wheat bran(W) and 2% calcium carbonate (CaCo3) on mycelium growth, yield and biological efficiency (BE) of local oyster mushroom which comparison with Chinese strain pleurotus ostreatus121 and pleurotus eryngii 080. The highest growth average of local P. ostretus on the SD substrate was 1.50 cm, and P.eryngii was recorded at 1.18 cm. The substrate CC was the most suitable for the yield of mushroom local P. ostreatus and P. ostreatus121(485.40 and 418.50 g/bag, respectively), while local P. eryngii recorded 470.40 in the same substrate. It was also found that the WS substrate recorded the highest BE for each local isolate and Chinese strain. Keywords: Iraqi strains, Pleurotus spp., agricultural wastes, wild agricultural mushrooms