TOTAL QUALITY INDEX APPROACH IN THE CULTIVATION OF OYSTER MUSHROOM (PLEUROTUS OSTREATUS) GROWN IN CELLULOSE PLANT WASTE

Abstract

Pleurotus ostreatus is the second most commonly cultivated and consumed mushroom in the world due to its specific mild taste of oyster in culinary processing. Its fruiting bodies can develop on different and specific cellulose plant wastes used as substrate without specific enrichment material. Advantages of using this type of waste are low costs of their production, usually without high technological investments. On the other side, productivity and quality of fruiting bodies, is affected by the chemical composition of the used substrate. In order to evaluate different quality parameters of fungii one of proposed methods is using total quality index (TQI). The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of used plant waste on selected quality parameters of Pleurotus ostreatus fruiting bodies from the day of harvesting during the storage period of 7 and 14 days in refrigerating conditions (~4 °C). Based on textural, color, antioxidative and biochemical quality parameters of Pleurotus ostreatus fruiting bodies, a mathematical model for calculating a single TQI has been proposed in order to identify optimal substrate concentration in growing selected variety of fungii.