mushroom in nepal

Major types of mushroom grown in Nepal :

The major types of mushroom grown in Nepal are white button mushroom, oyster, straw and shitake mushroom. A brief description about them is given as follows:

White Button Mushroom:

Among edible mushrooms White Button Mushroom is the most popular one in Nepal. This is known as “gobre chau” in nepali language. It is extensively cultivated through out the world. It requires low temperature. This mushroom has pleasant taste and aroma. These are normally grown on compost media. The raw materials are straw of paddy, corn stalk, leaves , wheat straw etc. it requires temperature of 15-18 during harvesting time. In Kathmandu valley and midhills, it can be grown twice in a year, one during poush –magh which gives output in falgun-chaitra and other during shrawn-bhadra gives output in asoj-mangsir. It can also grown in terai but only in winter.

Oyster Mushroom:

This mushroom is also known as Pleurotus in latin and Kanye chyau in Nepal. Its scientific name is Pleurotus Spp. Generally ,straw is used as the substrate for its cultivation. Temperature and relative humidity requirement for it is 20-30 and 80% respectively. In Kathmandu valley it can be cultivated during falgun-kartik. But nowdays due to presence of different species as per the climatic condition it can be grown year round. It can also be grown in the month of chaitra-kartik at 800-1400m attitude areas. It can also be cultivated in terai but in winter ( kartik-magh). Species can be grown in cool climate are Pleurotus floridia, P.ostreatus, and some species can be grown in warm climate are P.flabellatus, P.sapidus. among these ,species used in Nepal are P.ostreatus,P.sajor-caju and P.floridia(manandhar,2005).

Straw mushroom This mushroom can be cultivated both in terai as well as in hill of the country but the higher production will be in the terai due to its higher temperature demanding nature i.e. 38-40c. its scientific name is volvariella volvaceae. The substrate used for it is also straw. It is highly perishable but very delicious and nutritious. Unlike to above two types of mushroom ,it occupies large floor space for its cultivation.

Shitake mushroom.

This mushroom has medicinal value for diabetic patients. Its scientific name is lentinus edodes and it is known as Mrige chyau in nepali language. This is commonly found in hilly forest of the country especially during rainy season. It is grown either by using the saw dust or wood logs. Uttis is mainly used as its substrate. The wood logs more than ten years old can be utilized for its cultivation. Generally weight of mushroom is 150-250 gm.