Source: hindustantimes.com
PRAYAGRAJ: Allahabad University’s (AU) biotechnology researchers have succeeded in cultivating mushrooms that are not just yummy, healthy and fragrant but are packed with cancer and diabetes fighting elements.
These therapeutic mushrooms are grown using easily available crop waste along with dried flower waste collected from temples.
Developed as part of their research work by a team of scientists of AU’s Centre of Biotechnology under Prof MP Singh, these mushrooms are grown with very little input cost and provide great returns for the grower.
“We have used Pleurotus mushroom, generally referred to as ‘Oyster Mushroom’ or ‘Dhingri’ in India but have cultivated them using agricultural waste like chaff and husk besides flower waste. These medicinal mushrooms are higher fungi with additional nutraceutical attributes having low fat content along with high fibre content and beneficial compounds,” said Prof Singh.
“These medicinal mushrooms and their extract have a large number of bioactive components called secondary metabolites. The content in mushroom have great therapeutic applications on human health as they possess many properties such as anti-diabetic, anti-cancerous, anti-obesity along with anti-aging properties,” he added.
For best growth, these mushrooms need temperature between 25 and 30 degree Celsius with a very high humidity level of 80 to 90%, said Prof Singh.
The importance of the use of floral waste in cultivation of these mushrooms hold vital importance for cities like Prayagraj and Varanasi where tons of this waste gets generated owing to hundreds of temples and which usually end up in rivers adding to their pollution. As a result, this finding allows us to use waste, get a healthy produce, save environment and benefit our farmers—an ideal best from the waste, said Prof Singh.
Having published findings of the work in the prestigious international Journal Cellular and Molecular Biology recently, Prof Singh’s lab with researchers including Sonam Agarwal, Vivek Chaturvedi, Sushil Dubey, Huma Waseem, Ankita Kushwaha and Aprajita Tiwari is presently busy giving cultivation tips for these Mushrooms to farmers of the region.
Team member Vivek Chaturvedi shared that for a 1kg bag with input cost is as low as Rs 10 produces 800gm of mushrooms and gives a return of Rs 200. This mushroom fetches anything between Rs 150 to Rs 250 per kg or even higher in the market. Even the bag used in farming these mushrooms, owing to their high level of nitrogen, gets used as an ideal organic manure.