2. Materials and methods
2.1. Culture maintenance and growth conditions
Monocultures of Pleurotus florida were maintained
on malt extract (3%) agar (2%) at 25 C. The culture
was subcultured every 3 months. Using this culture,
spawn was prepared on wet, chopped rice straw under
aseptic conditions (Rajarathnam, Wankhede, & Patwardhan,
1979). A 3 month-old straw spawn was used
for all culturing experiments