Authors : D. Olila , G. Kyeyune , J.D. Kabasa , L. Kisovi and P.K.T. Munishi
Abstract: Most of the mushrooms, which are used as food by communities bordering Lake Victoria wetland areas, have neither been documented nor studied. These indigenous mushrooms are used solely as products of the wild. While the cultivation of mushrooms for food is a lucrative economic activity even in some developed countries, in East Africa, this has not yet been fully exploited. In the studies reported here, local people around the Lake Victoria basin participated in ranking mushroom species according to their nutritional, medicinal and toxicological significance. Termitomyces microcarpus was the highest ranked edible mushroom in the region. The T. microcarpus mushroom caps at umbrella stage were excised and inverted over dry sterile filter paper in a sterile petri-dish and incubated. The caps were then removed leaving pink `spore prints`. Potato Dextrose Agar (PDA) medium was prepared by dissolving 39g of the powder in 1L of distilled water and autoclaved at 121 C for 20 min. On cooling the media was poured in petri-dishes and left to solidify. Using a flame sterilized inoculation wire loop, spores were transferred from the `spore print` and S-streaked on the fresh PDA medium. The inoculated plates were incubated at ambient temperature (25�C) in the dark for 10 days. Three discrete pure colonies were separately subcultured onto fresh PDA medium and incubated under the previous conditions for 60 days. These constituted the three monospore cultures; S1 S2 and S3 which were used as starter cultures for further studies. The growth of the monospore starter cultures was monitored and a record taken of their colony diameter once a week during the 60 day incubation period. Using the liquid culture technique, the grain mother spawn for monospore starter culture S3 had fully colonized compared to that for monospore starter cultures S1 and S2 which attained full colonization at 75 and 90 days, respectively. However, there were differences in the intensity of colonization with grain mother spawn of monospore starter culture S3 giving a much more intense mycelial growth as compared to grain mother spawn of monospore starter culture S1, which gave a moderate mycelial growth. Mycelial colonization for grain mother spawn of monospore starter culture S2 was a bit scanty. The grain mother spawn prepared using the agar culture plug technique were very slow. After four months mycelial colonization was at most 25% of the total volume of millet substrate of grain mother spawn for monospore starter culture S1, but not more than 10% for the grain mother spawn of monospore starter cultures S2 and S3. Further studies are needed to initiate fruiting body formation which has not been possible under the present test conditions. This will require a better understanding of the relationship between the fungus and the termite and the ecological relationships therein.
D. Olila , G. Kyeyune , J.D. Kabasa , L. Kisovi and P.K.T. Munishi , 2007. Assessment of Potential for Domestication of Termitomyces microcarpus: An Indigenous Edible and Medicinal Mushroom from the Lake Victoria Basin . Agricultural Journal, 2: 627-631.