ISSN (Print): 2328-3777, ISSN (Online): 2328-3785, ISSN (CD-ROM): 2328-3793 American International Journal of Research in Formal, Applied & Natural Sciences AIJRFANS 14-145; © 2014, AIJRFANS All Rights Reserved Page 86 AIJRFANS is a refereed, indexed, peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary and open access journal published by International Association of Scientific Innovation and Research (IASIR), USA (An Association Unifying the Sciences, Engineering, and Applied Research) Available online at http://www.iasir.net Screening of suitable grains substrates for Spawn development, growth and yield of Pleurotus eous Santosh K Sahu, D.P. Singh, Rakesh Patel and G.K. Awadhiya Indira Gandhi Krishi Vishwavidhyalaya Raipur (C.G.), INDIA I. INTRODUCTION The mushroom is a form of plant life without leaves, buds, flowers, and is recognized as fleshy macro-fungi, a group of achlorophyllous organisms. These are sometimes tough and umbrella like sporophore (fruiting body) with spores, naturally grown in fields, forests, on manure heaps, water channels and hilly areas, mostly during and just after rains. Since earliest time, the mushrooms have been treated as special kinds of food. They are considered as one of the four major edible mushrooms cultivated in different countries for human consumption. Pleurotus with its great variety of species constitute a cost effective means of both supplementing the nutrition to human kind through the production of edible mushrooms and alleviating the suffering caused by certain kinds of illnesses through the use of medicinal mushrooms and their derivatives as nutriceuticals and even as pharmaceuticals. The protein contents of the food stuffs like, vegetables and cereals etc. is low as compared to mushroom (Hayes and Haddad, 1976; Jandaik and Kapoor, 1975. Bano et. al. 1980, and vitamins (Kazeli and Dzabaridee, 1994). For overall nutrition mushroom falls between the best vegetables and animal protein sources (Benjamin, 1995). Unlike the animals, most Fungi are stationary and can't pursue their food. (Kendrick 1985; Alexopolus and Mims, 1996). Mushroom has a lot of production potential and due to its rapid growth it gives so large amount of crop which could not be compared with any other crop (Robinson and Davidson, 1959). II. MATERIAL AND METHODS Different types of cereals grains were evaluated to see their effect on spawn development of P. eous. Spawn was prepared in glucose bottles using cereals grains (sorghum, lathyrus, soybean, wheat, maize, and paddy) as substrates. The grains were processed and filled in glucose bottles (250 g) than sterilized at 20 Ibs PSI for 2 hrs. Thereafter, these bottles were inoculated with equal sized mycelial bit of pure culture. Inoculated bottles were incubated at 25 ± 2C and observations were recorded when the mycelium covered the entire grains in any treatment. Three replications were kept in each treatment for observing spawn run and to know the yield effect of different grains (sorghum, lathyrus, soybean, wheat, maize, paddy) spawn of P. eous for this the developed or prepared different grains spawn added to the wheat straw at the rate of 4% and spawning carried out . Three replications were kept in each treatment. III. RESULT AND DISCUSSION Different grains substrates were studied for spawn development of P. eous and subsequently data is presented in table (Fig and Plate). There was significant difference in spawn development of P. eous on different grains. Among the tested grains, minimum (7.33 days) period for spawn development of P. eous was recorded in sorghum grains with mycelial character whitish pink compact mycelial growth all grains were completely covered by mycelium and tightly held with each other followed by paddy grain (8.66 days) with mycelial character whitish pink thread like mycelium covered by mycelium and tightly held with each other, maize grain (9 days) with mycelial character pink cottony compact mycelial growth all grains were completely covered by mycelium and tightly held with each other. however, lathyrus grains took maximum (20.33 days) with mycelial character mycelial growth was poor and grains were not fully covered time for spawn development of P. eous and followed by soybean (15.33 days) with mycelial growth was poor and grains were not fully covered. The present findings are very close to the results obtained by Munjal, 1973, Sing et al., 1986 and Suman, 1990 and Khatri and Agrawal, 2002 who reported early spawn development in sorghum grains. Ratainh and Surargiary Abstract : Screening of suitable grains substrates for spawn development, growth and yield of Pleurotus eous was studied in Mushroom Research Laboratory Department of Plant Pathology, College of Agriculture, IGKV, Raipur at 2011-12. Spawn development and yield of P. eous was also studied among cereal grains, sorghum.(7.33 days), paddy grain (8.66 days) and maize grains (9 days) took significantly less time for spawn development and maximum yield was recorded on maize grain (560.03g) with BE (83.96 %) compared to other grains. Keywords: Pleurotus eous pink oyster mushroom cereal grain spawn development yield.