~ 35 ~ The Pharma Innovation Journal 2021; 10(6): 35-43 ISSN (E): 2277- 7695 ISSN (P): 2349-8242 NAAS Rating: 5.23 TPI 2021; 10(6): 35-43 © 2021 TPI www.thepharmajournal.com Received: 06-04-2021 Accepted: 17-05-2021 Dibakar Panda Department of Plant Pathology, Institute of Agriculture, Visva Bharati, Sriniketan, West Bengal, India Mohan Kumar Biswas Department of Plant Pathology, Institute of Agriculture, Visva Bharati, Sriniketan, West Bengal, India Bhola Nath Department of Agricultural Statistics, Institute of Agriculture, Visva-Bharati, Sriniketan, West Bengal, India Corresponding Author: Dibakar Panda Department of Plant Pathology, Institute of Agriculture, Visva Bharati, Sriniketan, West Bengal, India Assessment and selection of best indigenous isolates of milky Mushroom Dibakar Panda, Mohan Kumar Biswas and Bhola Nath Abstract Mushroom is become an important food complement in these days as a rich source of vitamins, minerals etc. Milky mushroom is of Indian origin and requires a smooth substrate like paddy straw (lignocellulolytic substrates), under the climatic condition with a relative humidity (80-90%) and medium temperature (30-35 ◦ C) for better growth. There are fourty commonly known different species of milky mushroom out of which only four are of edible nature viz., C. indica, C. gambosa, C. ionides, and C. carnea. As each and every mushroom possesses a good nutritive value, whereas milky mushroom is a rich source of Vitamin-B2, E, A and C along with minerals such as, Phosphorous Potassium Calcium Zinc Iron and Selenium. Therefore, the present work was directed to evaluate four strains of milky mushroom viz., CI-1, CI-2, CI-3 and CI-4 procured from tropical mushroom research station, OUAT Bhubaneswar, mushroom laboratory of IGKV, Raipur, local market of Kolkata and local market of Bolpur respectively, according to the climatic condition of Bolpur. In this concern, we have observed the parameters such as, growth of mycelium, days required for mother pawn and seed spawn preparation, days required for sporophore formation, number of fruiting bodies, yield and biological efficiency. It was found that the CI-3 and CI-1 strains performed better than that of CI-2 and CI-4 under this evaluation based on these parameters of C. indica. Keywords: Biological efficiency, Calocybe Indica, lignocellulolytic, strain, tropical mushroom. 1. Introduction Mushrooms are treated as macro fungi belongs to phylum Ascomycota or Basidiomycota which are visible fruiting bodies with sexual reproductive structures. Its cultivation is eco- friendly, due to microbial process agricultural wastes are transformed into valuable food which are rich in proteins, vitamins and minerals and can be beneficial to human health. Mushroom farming requires upright space, short time and barely water. So, it has the potential of being a major crop in the upcoming years (Prakasam, 2012) [13] . In many countries mushroom is treated as major farming, studies revealed that mushroom farming can acquire third position after crop and livestock farming in terms of profitable farming, (Prakasam, 2012) [13] . In many developing countries, the advance technology towards mushroom farming has an auspicious scope to fulfil the nutritional necessities without disturbing the land. China is growing more than twenty edible mushrooms at commercial level and became foremost producer of mushrooms, which includes Calocybe indica (Wu et al., 2013) [19] . After china USA is the second producer in the world (Kumar et al., 2013) [11] . Cultivation of edible mushrooms was started in India initially with temperate mushroom like button mushroom (Agaricus bisporus). Nevertheless, our country can build rapid growth in the Mushroom trade by growing the tropical and sub-tropical mushrooms. It is reported that from the period 2010-2017 India produced about 0.13 million tons of mushroom and this field of cultivation has achieved an average growth rate of 4.3 per cent. There was much variation in the variety wise contribution of the mushrooms and the contributions were reported as, 73 per cent from white button mushroom, 16 per cent from oyster mushroom, 7 per cent from paddy straw mushroom and about 3 per cent from milky mushroom. Milky mushroom is a temperate mushroom, which needs relative humidity 80 to 90 per cent and temperature of 30-35 ◦ C for its better growth. This mushroom is ideal for growing in hot weather and it has a healthy fruiting body, striking colour, delicious taste, sustainable yield unique character and excellent life span as compared to other mushrooms (Amin et al., 2010) [1] . In West Bengal, Calocybe indica has been cultivated on a variety of agricultural wastes such as, garden and forest wastes. However, no work has been done on the other available strains of C. indica.