Seleksi Jenis Limbah Kapas sebagai Media Produksi Jamur Merang (Volvariella volvacea (Bull. ex. Fr) Sing)

Abstract

Cotton waste from spinning is one of the substrate for the growth of paddy straw mushroom. The kinds of cotton waste include trash cotton, AC cotton, cotton without dust, and cotton with dust which have cellulose concentrations of 52.76%, 73.70%, 52.70%, and 78.70% respectively. According to straw mushroom’s farmer, trash cotton gave higher production compared to other kinds of cotton. Therefore an experiment should be carried out to get correct information about the best kinds of cotton for the production of paddy straw mushroom. The experiment was done twice, i.e in April – July 2008 and July – October 2008. The compost substrate (3 000 g) consisted of trash cotton and straw with ratio of 2:1 (T2J1) and of 1:1 (T1J1) respectively, and similar ratio of cotton with dust and straw (D2J1 and D1J1) respectively. The substrates were inoculated with 2.5% of spawn and were kept growth until the end of harvest. Substrate D2J1 produced higher number and bigger of fruit bodies (in height and diameter) compared with those of the other three substrates, each with the value of biological efficiency (EB) 21.22% for the first experiment and 23.03% for the second one. In the first experiment, EB values of T1J1 and D1J1 were 16.76% and 15.63% respectively, while in the second experiment those of each 5.84% and 12.45%. The lowest EB value was found in T2J1 for both experiments i.e 16.76% and 0.22%, respectively. The low EB value was probably due to incomplete vegetative phase, along with the contamination of Trichoderma in the first experiment and the faster decomposition in the second experiment.