Compost Application as a Supplement on Straw Mushroom Cultivation: Agricultural Waste Reduction with Composting Technique and Value Adding by Mushroom Cultivation

Abstract

Cow compost was selected as a supplement to enhance straw mushroom production. Only composts at day 35 and 63, their characteristics were passed the standard of Department of Agriculture and selected as a supplement for straw mushroom cultivation with two different substrates, rice straw and old mushroom planting material (OMPM). The results showed that when using rice straw as a main planting material, composts helped significantly increasing weight of straw mushroom than the control (P<0.05) with no different of the compost age (P>0.05) while for OMPM, there was no significant difference in all treatments (P>0.05). However, using the compost from day 63, the composite numbers of medium and large sizes of straw mushroom with OMPM as a growth material was greatest, 90.47%. As a result, compost at day 63 was selected as a supplement for straw mushroom cultivation together with OMPM. The implementation of this research in the field was done with a group of agriculturists at Tumpon Don Phutsa subdistrict, Nakhon Pathom province. Not only the mushroom product could be both sell and consumable but also the cultivation helped reducing the cost to dispose OMPM which increasing direct/indirect household income.