*Department of Animal Nutrition and Forages.
Department of Microbiology, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana-141 004, India
Online published on 29 December, 2011.
Studies were conducted on the use of fermented paddy straw as substrate for Pleurotus spp. Four strains each of P. florida (PAU-4, PAU-5, PAU-8 and PAU-10) and P. sajor-caju (PAU.3, PAU-11, PAU-12, PAU17) were investigated for changes in chemical composition of substrate and cumulative yield. The PAU-4 strain showed earlier primordia initiation, giving 60% biological efficiency whereas PAU-3 exhibited the above effect much earlier with 70% biological efficiency. Out of the unfermented, semi-fermented and fermented substrates, the unfermented was better In chemical composition, in-sacco DMD as well as the cumulative yield of mushroom. Consequently, the PAL-3 treated spent paddy straw was used for feeding to buffaloes, replacing 50 and 10% of plain paddy straw as a basal roughage. The results showed that 50% replacement group exhibited better utilisation of feed nutrient besides showing a much higher nitrogen balance as compared to 100% replacement group.
