Mushrooms are popular due to the nutrition contents in the fruit bodies and are relatively easy to cultivate. Mushrooms from the white-rot fungi group can be cultivated on agricultural biomass such as sawdust, paddy straw, wheat straw, oil palm frond, oil palm empty fruit bunches, oil palm bark, corn silage, corn cobs, banana leaves, coconut husk, pineapple peel, pineapple leaves, cotton stalk, sugarcane bagasse and various other agricultural biomass. Mushrooms are exceptional decomposers that play important roles in the food web to balance the ecosystems. They can uptake various minerals, including essential and non-essential minerals provided by the substrates. However, the agricultural biomass used for mushroom cultivation is sometimes polluted by heavy metals because of the increased anthropogenic activities occurring in line with urbanisation. Due to their role in mycoremediation, the mushrooms also absorb pollutants from the substrates into their fruit bodies. This article reviews the sources of agricultural biomass for mushroom cultivation that could track how the environmental heavy metals are accumulated and translocated into mushroom fruit bodies. This review also discusses the possible health risks from prolonged uptakes of heavy metal-contaminated mushrooms to highlight the importance of early contaminants’ detection for food security.

Fungi are a diverse group of microorganisms that play many roles in human livelihoods. However, the isolation of potential fungal species is the key factor to their utilization in different sectors, including the enzyme industry. Hence, in this study, we used two different fungal repositories—soil and weed leaves—to isolate filamentous fungi and evaluate their potential to produce the cellulase enzyme. The fungal strains were isolated using dichloran rose bengal agar (DRBA) and potato dextrose agar (PDA). For cellulase enzyme production, a rice straw submerged fermentation process was used. The enzyme production was carried out at the different incubation times of 3, 5, and 7 days of culture in submerged conditions with rice straw. Fungal identification studies by morphological and molecular methods showed that the soil colonies matched with Trichoderma reesei, and the weed leaf colonies matched with Aspergillus awamori. These species were coded as T. reesei UMK04 and A. awamori UMK02, respectively. This is the first report of A. awamori UMK02 isolation in Malaysian agriculture. The results of cellulase production using the two fungi incorporated with rice straw submerged fermentation showed that T. reesei produced a higher amount of cellulase at Day 5 (27.04 U/mg of dry weight) as compared with A. awamori (15.19 U/mg of dry weight), and the concentration was significantly different (p < 0.05). Our results imply that T. reesei can be utilized for cellulase production using rice straw.

The present study reported a facile method for the determination of melamine in milk powder products based on the aggregation of reactant-free 5 nm gold nanoparticles (AuNPs). The strong electrostatic attraction between the positively charged exocyclic amine groups present in the melamine molecule and the negatively charged ions bound to the AuNPs induced aggregation of the AuNPs, resulting in visible color changes that could be seen with the naked eye and monitored by ultraviolet–visible (UV–Vis) absorbance spectra. The method shows high sensitivity with detection limits of 1 × 10⁻⁹ M for visual detection and 1 × 10⁻¹¹ M for UV–Vis analysis, which is far below the safety limit of melamine ingestion in infant formula (1 ppm = 7.9 × 10⁻⁶ M) and the detection limit acquired by most AuNP-based melamine detection methods. Good recoveries were obtained over the range of 94.7–95.5% with a relative standard deviation of mean recovery (RSD) ranging from 1.40 to 5.81. The method provides a simple, feasible, fast and real-time detection of melamine adulterants in infant formula by the naked eye, without the aid of advanced instruments.

Farmers of our country are not aware about seed treatment for controlling seed borne fungi. Seeds of 3 rice varieties viz. BR11, BRRI dhan30 and BRRI dhan33 were collected from farmers houses of Gopalpur, Tangail. Three seed treating fungicides viz. vitavax 200 vitavax 200 (0.25%), thiovit (0.25%) and cupravit (0.25%) were used. Collected seed samples were tested by dry inspection and blotter method. The highest and the lowest germination were recorded in seed samples of BRRI dhan30 (90%) and BRRI dhan33 (75%). After seed treatment the highest and the lowest germination were recorded in seed samples of BRRIdhan30, BRRI dhan33 (100) treated by vitavax 200 (0.25%) and BR11 (80%) in control. Seed health test by blotter method revealed seed borne fungi belonging to six genera viz. Bipolarisoryzae (2.5 to 8.53%), Alternariapadwickii (5.3 to 13.35%), Fusariummoniliforme (11.66 to 21.67%), Fusariumoxysporum (1.25 to 4.35%), Curvularialunata (1.95 to 7.5%) and Aspergillusspp (1.75 to 6.54%) were encountered. Bur after seed treatment remarkable improvement viz. Bipolarisoryzae (0.15 to 3.75%), Alternariapadwickii (0.0 to 3.0%), Fusariummoniliforme (2.16 to 5.83%), Fusariumoxysporum (0.0 to 3.0%), Curvulariaunata (0.0 to 2.56%) and Aspergillusspp (0.0 to 1.5%) were encountered. Vitavax 200 was found most effective against the seed borne pathogens of rice. Nowadays, many botanical extracts such as neem, nishinda, garlic, alamonda and biological agent such as Trichoderma also using as seed treating agent and resulted significant higher germination and plant stand, less disease incidence and higher yield of different crops. So, the farmers should treat their seed before sowing in their field and through this technique they will be more benefited.Progressive Agriculture 27 (1): 48-56, 2016

Ammonia volatilisation causes major nitrogen losses from the soil and applied urea which results in low urea-N usage efficiency. Incubation experiment and pot experiment were conducted to assess the effect of enriched rice straw biochar on ammonia volatilisation, soil pH, exchangeable ammonium, available nitrate, and rice plant growth in comparison to the urea without additives under waterlogged conditions. During the incubation study, urea was amended with different rates of enriched rice straw biochar (5, 10, 15, and 20 t ·ha^-1). Urea amended with biochar at 5 to 10 t·ha^-1 had successfully minimized ammonia loss compared to urea without biochar. Besides, application rate of 5 to 10 t·ha^-1 of biochar also preserved more ammonium ions (65.37% and 66.54%, respectively), while at the same time, the retention of nitrate ions was 50.9% and 45.3% over urea without biochar. Similarly, 5 to 10 t·ha^-1 of enriched rice straw biochar increased soil N level and improved rice plant growth significantly in pot experiment. Precisely, incorporation of enriched rice straw biochar at rate of 5 and 10 t·ha^-1 offers wide variety benefits to soil amendments and rice plant nutrient uptake. Hence, the findings suggest that urea amended with enriched rice straw biochar altered the nutrients level in soil by improving rice plant growth.