Evaluation of agronomic waste disinfection methods for oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus Jacq. P. Kumm) cultivation

Agronomic waste disinfection is crucial to the production parameters and economic viability of edible mushroom cultivation. Method selection should be based on efficiency, cost, and accessibility. Therefore, we aimed to evaluate the efficiency of different disinfection methods on the Pleurotus ostreatus cultivation. For the mushroom cultivation, the wet mass equivalent to 1 kg of dry mass of agronomic waste was used and bagged in polypropylene bags. The agronomic wastes were inoculated at 5% with the PO/A01 strain, followed by the incubation, induction, and fruiting with three harvest flows. A completely randomized experimental design was used, with five disinfection methods, immersion in tap water (control), alkaline water, hot water, pasteurization, and sterilization, and six repetitions. Mycelial growth (cm day⁻¹), earliness (days), biological efficiency (%), production rate (%) and contamination percentage were analyzed. The results were subjected to an Analysis of variance (ANOVA), Tukey means test and Pearson’s correlation analysis at a significance level of 5% (P < 0.05). Immersion in alkaline water, in corn stubble, showed greater control in the contamination percentage, promoted greater mycelial growth, and increased earliness, while in rice straw it was inefficient to inhibit contamination. We observed greater mycelial growth in the rice straw substrate when immersed in hot water, which indicates greater sensitivity of this agronomic waste to thermal shock. Sterilization promoted greater biological efficiency in corn stubble (95.51%) and hot water immersion resulted in higher values in rice straw (86.98%). The pasteurization method showed lower biological efficiency and production rate, resulting, on average, in 55.12% and 0.75%, respectively. We concluded that, although the efficiency of the disinfection method depends on the chemical characteristics intrinsic to the agronomic waste used, immersion in hot water and immersion in alkaline water would be the most efficient and accessible methods for rural producers.