Full Length Research Paper

Yield response of mushroom (Agaricus bisporus) on wheat straw and waste tea leaves based composts using supplements of some locally available peats and their mixture with some secondary casing materials

Hakan Simsek¹*, Ergun Baysal¹, Mehmet Colak¹, Hilmi Toker¹, and Ferah Yilmaz²

¹Mugla University, Faculty of Technical Education, Kotekli, 48000, Mugla, Turkey.

²Mugla University, Mushroom Research Center, Kotekli, 48000, Mugla, Turkey.

*Corresponding author. E-mail: hsimsek48@gmail.com. Tel: +90-252-2111735. Fax: +90-252-2238511.

Accepted 5 November, 2007

The study was conducted to investigate yields of mushroom (Agaricus bisporus) on wheat straw and waste tea leaves based composts. Mixtures (50:50, v/v) of some locally available peats including peat of Bolu (PB), peat of Agacbasi (PA), peat of Caykara (PC) and their mixture (80:20; v/v) with which piece of mosaic and sand were used. Also, some activator materials such as wheat bran, wheat chaff, chicken manure, pigeon manure, and poplar leaves were used for A. bisporus cultivation. The results on wheat straw based composts provided the highest mushroom yield (23.01%) that was obtained on wheat straw and pigeon manure based compost using a mixture of PA with PC (50+50; v/v) as casing material. For waste tea leaves based composts, the highest mushroom yield (24.90%) were recorded on wheat straw and pigeon manure based compost using a mixture of PC with sand (80+20; v/v) as casing material.

Key words: Mushroom, waste tea leaves, wheat straw, activator materials, casing materials, yield.