Low Costing for Volvariella Mushroom Planting

Malaysia has great diversity of edible mushrooms. Volvariella volvacea is also known as Paddy straw mushroom and/or Palm mushroom has a great potential for commercialization. This species is commonly grown in tropical climate and also known as Asian Button Mushroom. Volvariella volvacea is a short cycle mushroom and easy to grow on any cellulosic agriculture waste such as empty fruit bunch (EFB), paddy straw, sugar cane, cassava leaf etc. In this paper, a low cost cultivation of Volvariella volvacea mushroom on EFB will be described. Fresh EFB from palm oil factory was compost for 10 days by covering the EFB with thick plastic canvas and flush with water at least three times during the composting period (Composting Process). Beds were prepared by using EFB (3 x 15 feet), flush with water and step on EFB to provide more space in expending mycelium. Volvariella substrate seedling was immediately sowed on the EFB surface bedding. Plastic canvas was covered completely onto each sowed EFB bed for 10 days (Spawning Process, 35-40 degree Celsius). Loop made by bamboo where then attached to the bed and again covered by the plastic canvas for another 10 days (Pinning Process, 28-35 degree Celsius). It takes a total of 30 days from the compost to emerge mushroom fruiting body. It is important to monitor the temperature (28-35 degree Celsius) and high humidity (>80 %) throughout all process. Harvesting can be made twice a day and the average of each bed is approximately 200 g. (author)