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Degradative Ability of Mushrooms Cultivated on Corn Silage Digestate

Summary

This research explores an innovative way to handle waste from biogas plants by using it to grow edible mushrooms. Instead of just spreading digestate on fields as fertilizer, which can cause environmental problems, scientists found that certain mushrooms can grow well on this waste material while breaking down its tough components. This makes the waste more environmentally friendly and produces valuable mushrooms in the process. Impacts on everyday life: – Provides a more sustainable way to handle agricultural waste – Creates new opportunities for mushroom farmers to grow products more efficiently – Helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions from waste management – Demonstrates how waste materials can be converted into valuable food products – Contributes to more sustainable agricultural practices

Background

Managing organic waste streams is a major challenge for the agricultural industry. Anaerobic digestion (AD) treatment process is considered the most suitable bioenergy technology to treat wastes for biogas production from agriculture, industry and household food wastes. Digestate is a heterogeneous material produced in large amounts during the AD process. The inadequate handling of digestate may cause environmental risks due to losses of ammonia, methane and nitrous oxide. Current management practices involve using digestate as fertilizer, but this can lead to nutrient imbalances and greenhouse gas emissions.

Objective

The main goal of the project was to use mushroom cultivation for degrading the ligninolytic fraction of digestate. The study aimed to investigate the mycelial growth rate and degradation capacity of lignocellulosic components from corn silage digestate, undigested wheat straw and their mixture using various edible and medicinal mushroom species.

Results

Pleurotus ostreatus and M. importuna exhibited higher growth rates on corn digestate compared to wheat straw control. After 12 days of mycelial growth, all tested species showed ability to initiate depolymerization and decay of the lignocellulosic component of digestate. P. ostreatus showed the highest biological efficiency (103.3%) and fruiting body production on digestate substrate. Both P. ostreatus and P. cornucopiae demonstrated effective lignin degradation capabilities.

Conclusion

The results confirm the possibility to economically utilize digestate for mushroom cultivation. Lignin removal by mushroom mycelium improves the degradation of hemicellulose and cellulose, which enhances its potential use as fertilizer and opens possibilities for new biobased products. The study provides attractive perspectives for both more sustainable digestate management and improvement of mushroom cultivation efficiency.
  • Published in:Molecules,
  • Study Type:Experimental Study,
  • Source: 10.3390/molecules25133020
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