article · Horticulturae
Greenhouse cultivation of cauliflower evaluated the combined impact of spent mushroom substrate biochar and plant-growth-promoting rhizobacteria. Characterisation of the biochar produced via slow pyrolysis demonstrated structural and chemical properties suitable for soil amendment, helping to accelerate soil nutrient availability. When tested across different treatment levels, combining biochar with the microbial inoculant significantly enhanced crop growth, yield, and physiological health compared to untreated controls. The highest performance was achieved using ten grams of biochar per kilogram of soil alongside the bacteria. This combination generated the greatest head yield, plant biomass, height, and leaf count. It also stimulated beneficial biochemical responses and enzyme activities, including higher levels of chlorophyll, ascorbic acid, phenolics, and antioxidant enzymes such as superoxide dismutase and catalase, demonstrating an effective circular use of mushroom waste.
Mushroom cultivation produces substantial organic waste in the form of spent substrate. Converting this residue into biochar and combining it with beneficial bacteria offers a practical way to recycle agricultural by-products into high-value soil amendments. This improves crop yields and biochemical defences under greenhouse conditions, supporting more sustainable horticultural production and circular resource management.
This work points toward commercial soil amendment and biofertiliser formulations combining pyrolysed mushroom waste with beneficial microbes, intended for commercial horticultural growers. As this was a preliminary study conducted strictly under greenhouse conditions, the technology remains at an early applied stage. Field validation across diverse soil types, long-term stability testing of the microbial inoculants, and cost-effective scaling of biochar production are necessary steps before market adoption.
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This paper investigated the impact of the combined use of spent mushroom substrate (SMS) biochar and plant-growth-promoting rhizobia (PGPR) on the growth, yield, and biochemical response of cauliflower (Brassica oleracea var. botrytis). A preliminary study was conducted under greenhouse condition using six treatments (sextuplicate) as control (no addition), T1 (PGPR), T2 (5 g/Kg biochar), T3 (5 g/Kg biochar + PGPR), T4 (10 g/Kg biochar), and T5 (10 g/Kg biochar + PGPR) under greenhouse conditions. The Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM-Zeiss), Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS), and Fourier’s transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analyses showed that biochar produced from slow pyrolysis of SMS had advantageous structural, functional, and morphological properties for agricultural use. Results showed that SMS biochar addition aids the acceleration of soil nutrient properties. SMS biochar and PGPR application also significantly (p < 0.05) improved the selected growth, yield, and biochemical parameters of cauliflower. In particular, the highest cauliflower yield (550.11 ± 10.05 g), fresh plant biomass (1.66 ± 0.04 Kg), dry plant biomass (149.40 ± 4.18 g), plant height (22.09 ± 0.14 cm), root length (11.20 ± 0.05 cm), plant spread (28.35 ± 0.18 cm), and the number of leaves (12.50 ± 0.50) were observed in T5 treatment. Similarly, the best values for biochemical parameters and enzyme activities such as total chlorophyll (TC: 3.13 ± 0.07 mg/g), superoxide dismutase (SOD: 79.12 ± 1.29 µg/g), catalase (CAT: 55.70 ± 2.52 µg/g), peroxidase (POD 30.18 ± 0.37 µg/g), total phenolics (TP: 19.50 ± 0.31 mg/g), ascorbic acid (AA: 14.18 ± 0.55 mg/g), and total carotenoids (TCT: 150.17 ± 8.20 µg/100 g) were also recorded in the T5 treatment. The application of SMS biochar and PGPR showed a positive correlation with growth, yield, and biochemical response of cauliflower, as indicated by the Pearson correlation analysis. The findings of this study suggest efficient recycling of mushroom industry waste for biochar production and the use of PGPR to improve nutrient utilization in sustainable agriculture.
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DOI: 10.3390/horticulturae8090830
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