Mycelial growth and fruiting body production of Cordyceps militaris in different culture chambers

Abstract

Cordyceps militaris is one of the most edible mushrooms which has been widely used in medicinal and therapeutic applications in China and South-East Asia, especially Thailand. More recently, its fruiting-body production can be artificially cultivated by using growth chambers. ??The aim of the present study was to determine efficiency of mycelial-growth rate and fruiting-body production of C. militaris (strain Cm1) under differentially modified artificial chambers. The experiment were performed by culturing the Cm1 on three-different chambers, commercial-growth chamber (T1), modified-beverage-cooler chamber (T2), and culture room (T3), with 10 biological replicates. The result revealed that its mycelial-growth rate was the significantly highest and fastest growth on the fruiting-body-culture (FBC) medium surface incubated in the T3 chamber (90%) and followed by T2 chamber (70%) at the 1^st week (in dark condition), compared to T1 (40%). At the 2^nd week of cultivation (in light condition), aerial mycelia incubated in T1 and T2 chambers was able to produce yellowish or yellow pigments, but aerial mycelia incubated in T3 did not developed pigment as showed in white. At the 7^th week of cultivation, both its fresh (17.78??1.26-19.05??1.04 g/bottle) and dry (1.77??0.40-1.90??0.32g/bottle) weights harvested from all chambers were not statistically significant differences at p-value < 0.05. This results indicated that the modified-beverage-cooler chamber (T2) were suitable to instead of T1 and T3 chambers for mycelial growth and fruiting-body production of C. militaris strain Cm1.