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Correspondence to Author: Meena Ru and Cleera Pandey 

Division of Crop Protection, Central Tuber Crops Research Institute, Sreekariyam, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India.

ABSTRACT

Maintaining cultures in a viable and stable state for extended periods of time without sacrificing their physiological, phenotypic, or genetic characteristics is the primary goal of culture preservation (Chang & Miles, 2004). The most popular technique for storing mushroom cultures for a brief length of time involves keeping the culture tubes either in a refrigerator (5–8ºC) for an average of 3–4 months or at ambient temperature (28–35ºC) for a duration of 1-2 months. This technique requires repeated subculturing, which increases the risk of degeneration and contamination. The goal of this study was to provide a low-cost, straightforward technique for long-term viable mushroom culture preservation. It was investigated whether different mushroom cultures could be kept on sorghum (Jowar) grain at low temperatures (5–8ºC in a refrigerator). The outcome unequivocally demonstrated that the mushroom cultures could be kept for more than a year at low temperatures on sorghum grain without risk of contamination or changes in growth or morphology. The capacity to preserve milky mushroom (Calocybe indica) and some isolates of reishi mushroom (Ganoderma lucidum) cultures—which cannot be kept at low temperatures—was the method’s greatest benefit.

Keywords:Basidiomycete – Calocybe indica – Ganoderma – grain – preservation

Citation:

Meena Ru. A straightforward technique for preserving the cultures of several commercial mushrooms. The Journal of Fungi 2024.