Vol. 11, Special Issue 3 (2022)

Author(s):
Neelam Gupta, Manju Mehta and Kiran Singh

Abstract:
Mushroom cultivation as a subsidiary occupation provides ample opportunities for sustaining rural livelihood. One of the benefits of mushroom cultivation is their potential contribution to a more sustainable and environmentally-friendly way of farming. Mushroom cultivation using an agricultural waste as a growing medium, and the subsequent use of spent substrate has high value for horticultural activity; organic fertilizer; and potential utilization for animal feeding. Mushrooms are popular valuable foods because they are low in calories, carbohydrates, fat and sodium also, they are cholesterol-free. Besides, mushrooms provide important nutrients, including selenium, potassium, riboflavin, niacin, vitamin D, proteins, and fiber. Nutritional value of mushrooms lies between that of meat and vegetables. Mushrooms are important for their healing capacities and properties in traditional medicine. It has reported beneficial effects for health and treatment of some diseases. Many nutraceutical properties are described in mushrooms, such as prevention or treatment of Parkinson, Alzheimer, hypertension and high risk of stroke. They are also utilized to reduce the likelihood of cancer invasion and metastasis due to antitumoral attributes. Constraints in mushroom production is highly perishable, lack of marketing facility, infected spawn, non-possession of technical knowledge, low risk bearing capacity, lack of technical guidance, lack of flow of information, non-availability of spawn in time, non-availability of quality straw, lack of involvement of Govt. In this paper, nutritional, medicinal, economic, environmental values and constraints in mushroom production were discussed.