Cultural conditions for basidiospore germination of Lentinus swartzii and Lentinus strigosus and their morphogenesis
Rich Milton R. Dulay1,2*, Esperanza C. Cabrera1, Sofronio P. Kalaw2, Renato G. Reyes2, Ching T. Hou3
1Department of Biology, College of Science, De La Salle University, Taft Avenue, Manila, Philippines
2Center for Tropical Mushroom Research and Development, and Tuklas Lunas Development Center, Department of Biological Sciences, College of Arts and Sciences, Central Luzon State University, Science City of Munoz, Nueva Ecija 3120 Philippines
3National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research, Agriculture Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture, 1815 N. University St., Peoria, Illinois 61604, USA
Abstract
The effects of liquid culture media, pH, temperature, and illumination on the basidiospore germination of Lentinus swartzii and Lentinus strigosus as well as their morphogenesis were studied and documented. Coconut water and potato broth with pH of 5.0 – 7.0, incubated at 30°C and total dark, were the optimum nutritional and physical factors in liquid culture condition as activators for successful basidiospore germination of the two Lentinus species. A peculiar germination process was observed in which the basidiospores germinated through swelling and elongated to become hyphae. The vegetative phases of both mushrooms occurred in four significant stages: swelling and clumping (a mechanism for plasmogamy), elongation, septation, and branching. On the other hand, their reproductive phases had six distinct stages: mycelial coat formation, browning and hardening stage (only in L. swartzii), popcorn-like formation (only in L. strigosus), primordia initiation, pinhead stage, pileus expansion stage, and maturation stage. This study established that the two Lentinus spp. have the same vegetative phase (i.e., basidiospore germination and development of hypha and mycelia), but have unique cultivation characteristics in their reproductive phase (i.e., formation of basidiocarp). The obtained information on the developmental biology of the two Lentinus spp. is very useful not only in the generation of effective mushroom biomass production technologies but also in many fungal biotechnological applications.
