: This study investigated the internal and external morphological characteristics of decomposition and browning of oak sawdust medium for ground bed cultivation of Lentinula edodes. Within fifty days after L. edodes inoculation, surface hyphae on the bed browned. In 110 days, the fungal hyphae occupied and decomposed wood fibers, vessels and parenchymatous cells from the inside as white profuse hyphal mass was amorphously dissolving the saw dust particles from the outer surface. Most of the white hyphal bed surface became cleanly brown, however, some colony surface became blackened and slimy with contaminating bacteria, hyphae and spores. The brown layer was ca. 0.34 mm thick with highly dense and white hyphal mass beneath, whereas the blackened layer was ca. 1.17 mm thick with shrunken hyphae and less decomposed sawdust particles beneath. The surface hardness of the brown surface was ca. 0.73 kgf/cm 2 , soft and resilient, while that of the blackened was ca. 0.91 kgf/cm 2 , hard and nonresilient. By 150 days Lentinula edodes mushrooms fruited only on the brown surface and not on the blackened medium.

Changes in physical and chemical properties of oak sawdust were investigated by depth and time for 46 days during the fermentation process of 33 tons of the sawdust for oak mushroom cultivation. The degrees of change in the properties of the sawdust differed depending on the depth and fermentation period. Most of the physical-chemical properties except temperature and pH gradually changed during the fermentation. The temperature change was highly sensitive to the environment at the surface sawdust to 20 cm depth, while it gradually increased to the maximum 58.9 o C at 40~100 cm depths in 12 days and slowly to the maximum at 150 cm depth in 24 days. The moisture content of the sawdust decreased gradually from 31% to 26.5~28.0% in 24 days. Of the chemical properties during the fermentation, pH generally rose from 5.2 to 5.6, but it decreased to 4.4~4.7 at 150 cm depth in 16 days. While the carbon content of the sawdust was 68~70% without significant change, nitrogen content increased from 0.22% to 0.25% and thus C/N ratio gradually lowered from 320 to 280. P content in the sawdust gradually increased from 0.005% to 0.022% for 46 days. Osmotic concentration of the hot water extract of the sawdust varied 41.5~44.2 mmol/kg without significant change by the depth and time. The starch particles within initial ray parenchyma cells of sawdust decreased and fungal hyphae formed on the surface of the sawdust granules and within xylem vessel cells in 35 days. The effect of the sawdust fermentation on oak mushroom cultivation needs continued research.

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