Abstract:

【Objective】Through comparing the profit ratio of cost of liquid culture and solid culture technologies for spawn production, the advantages of liquid spawn production were explored for providing strategies for facilitating the application of this technology to promote healthy and rapid development of edible mushroom industry.【Method】 In this paper, an edible fungus research laboratory and a large-scale production facility for edible mushroom were used as examples. Detailed records and statistics were kept for the production of Bai-Ling mushroom (pleurotus nebrodensis) spawn using liquid culture and solid culture technologies in the years of 2009 and 2010. Statistical analyses were carried out on the cost and the profit.【Result】Liquid culture technology for spawn production has significant profit advantages. For example, the time for spawn production is reduced by 24 days. The time for mycelia to fill a fruiting bag is reduced to 10 days. The contamination rate is reduced by 1.5%. The cost of one fruiting bag is reduced by 0.732 yuan. The profit ratio of cost is increased by 42.08%. However, many problems need to be solved before this technology can be broadly used. 【Conclusion】 Comparing with solid culture method, liquid culture technology for spawn production is obviously more advantageous, which is reflected in better spawn quality, reduction of contamination, increase of efficiency, reduction of cost and increase of production stability. For this technology to be broadly used, it is key to improve incubator shakers, fermentation tanks and inoculation equipments. Efforts to facilitate researches according to the demand of a dynamic market would promote the application of this technology in the fast-growing mushroom spawn production industry.

Key words: liquid culture technology for spawn production, solid culture technology for spawn production, edible mushroom, economic benefit