(Food Quality & Safety Research Institute)

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Hands-on Training on Oyster Mushroom Business Farming (FQSRI, PARC-SARC, Karachi)

Two days Hands-on training was organized including spawn production and oyster mushroom growing technologies for participants of research and academia on 23-24 February 2023 at Foodborne Pathogens and Microbial Contamination Lab, FQSRI, PARC-SARC. The main objective of the training was to create awareness about the most recent technological advancements and ways to generate income with their available means.

After recitation of Holy Quran, Mr. Parwaiz Ahmed Baloch, Director FQSRI, thanked to all participants. He was of view to include mushroom farming as commercial crop commodity to generate income and diet implementation. Dr. Uzma Sitara, SSO, FQSRI, presented her work on different growing techniques and proximate analysis of oyster mushroom. The participants remained involved in different substrate preparation (wheat straw and sawdust) by use of chemical and non-chemical treatments, tissue culture, autoclaving, inoculation, spawn preparation, growth room and harvesting of mushrooms, packing and storage facilities of mushroom production businesses efficiently preventing from post-harvest losses and pest free production.

 Dr. Zakir Hussain Dahari Director General, PARC-SARC thanked all participants, management and organizers of PARC-SARC. He pointed out to introduce mushroom farming in urban and rural areas of Sindh province. He assumed his full cooperation to uplift agri-business-related activities. The question regarding the production and marketing of mushroom asked by participants were satisfyingly answered. All participants assured to work for production/cultivation of mushroom at their best level in Sindh Province. In the questions and discussion session, participants asked several questions related to the production and marketing of mushrooms and received satisfactory responses to their questions. All participants assured that based on their learnings they will participate in the development of oyster mushroom farming related to the current activities as well as would participate in conducting training of the stakeholders at different places of Sindh in the future. Certificates were also distributed among resource persons and participants.