Cultivation of Ganoderma Lucidum (Curt. fr.) P.karst

Ganoderma lucidum (reishi mushroom, Ling Zhi) is a medicinal mushroom that has been used in the Orient for more than 2000 years. It has been an economically important species, particularly in the Far East countries (China, Japan, Korea, etc.), for over 4000 years. It is widely grown on a commercial scale and is commonly purchased for its medicinal and spiritual properties. Therefore, present investigations were undertaken to use locally available sawdust, wheat bran, sorghum and sorghum grains in combination with chalk powder and gypsum for selection of an ideal material for Ganoderma lucidum spawn production. G.lucidum had maximum and faster linear growth rate having sorghum and its combinations. It colonized sorghum sub- strate rapidly without any contamination and the spawn prepared with sorghum had maximum yield and biological efficiency. The results showed that the parameters which are used for the preparation of mother spawn, and fruit body development.