Comparative evaluation of wheat and paddy straws for mushroom production and feeding residual straws to ruminants

Wheat and paddy straws were studied for the growth of Pleurotus, and the feeding of left-over spent straws (at 50 and 100% replacement levels of plain straws) to Murrah buffalo calves. The yield of fruiting bodies was much higher with wheat straw than with paddy straw. The results on feeding trials showed that there was little difference in the treated and untreated straws with respect to most of the parameters like feed intake and utilization, except that the spent wheat straw could be fed at a higher level than spent paddy straw to young buffaloes. (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.