Evaluation of different agricultural based substrate for mass multiplication of Trichoderma viride.

Abstract

Among different subustrate rice bran, rice husk and saw dust when mixed with sorghum in 1:1 ratio supported excellent growth and sporulation of T. viride. Sorghum alone was equally effective for growth and sporulation of antagonist. The spore concentration of Trichoderma on above formulations varied from 1.0 x 109 to 1.0x1010 spores/g of substrate. Maximum spore concentration (1.06x1010) was in sorghum powder followed by 1.31x109 in mixture of rice husk and sorghum formulation (table-1). This sporulation capacity was rated as excellent. Integration of sorghum grain with either rice husk or rice bran resulted excellent colonization capacity as well as sporulation which is similar to sorghum alone. It clearly indicated that efficiency of substrate can be easily increased and cost of production reduced by mixing a low cost agricultural waste such as rice husk and rice bran with sorghum. Saw dust mixed with sorghum (1:1) is also a very effective substrate by giving excellent colonization and good spore production.