Cultivation of Calocybe indica was undertaken with locally available substrates viz. paddy straw, maize stalk waste, bamboo leaves and young coconut fibre alone and various combinations with paddy straw + maize stalk (1:1 v/v), paddy straw+ saw dust (1:1 v/v), and paddy straw+ saw dust (1:2 v/v)and different casing materials suchas vermicompost, soil+ sand (1:1v/v), dried saw dust, hard paper (wet condition) and combination of tea waste+soil+ sand, saw dust +sand (1:1 v/v), tea waste+ sand (1:1 v/v) in paddy straw cultivating condition. Among the substrates, paddy straw was the best with 196.12 % biological efficiency (BE) followed by different substrate combinations but the bamboo leaves alone was recorded as substrate with lowest potential (84%) for cultivation. As casing material the spent mushroom compost (SMC) of Agaricus bisporus resulted in the highest biological efficiency (207%) followed by soil+ sand (196%), sand +saw dust (163%) but combination of tea waste+ soil + sand was inferior (151%). Saw dust gave the lowest (96.8%) biological efficiency. In conclusion the maximum biological efficiency of C. indica can be obtained by using paddy straw as a substrate encased with spent compost of button mushroom.

Oyster mushroom is one of the most popular mushrooms in North Bengal and a large number of growers are now cultivating oyster mushroom throughout the year. There are mainly three species of oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus, P. sajor-caju, P florida) which are being cultivated in this region. Out of these three mushrooms, P. ostreatus and P. sajor-caju are generally cultivated in summer as it grows in a temperature between 25-33C while P. florida is generally cultivated during winter as it requires 15-20°C for its growth. Bottle cultivation is a technique of mushroom cultivation where it reduces the cost of plastic bags and the plastic bottles can be recycled. Besides plastic bottles, other used laboratory chemical plastic containers were also tested and gave good results.