Design and Evaluation of Portable Manually Operated Spawn Spreading Machine for Oyster Mushroom (Pleurotus florida) Cultivation

Oyster mushroom (Pleurotus florida) is gaining demand owing to its benefits and taste. But, the prevailing manual method of cultivation is compromised with limited spawn spreading capacity and high chance of contamination which could be overcome by use of a spawn spreading machine. Currently no such machine is available which has prompted us to develop the same. The benefaction of the developed machine to the farmers is lightweight, portable, autoclavable, affordable, uncomplicated design, unskilled person can operate and minimize contamination chance that leads to increase in yield of mushroom. It constitutes the main frame, truncated conical hopper and ball valve metering mechanism. The machine evaluated in the lab shown that a highest spawn spreading capacity of 288 bags/h as compared to manual spreading operation of 110 bags/h for rice straw substrate at spawning rate of 50 g. In this context, the result clearly indicate that, the spawn spreading machine is very cost effective, save time and reduce labour requirement as compared to manual operation.