Effect of Seagrass Mixed With Casing Soil for the Cultivation of Mushrooms and Study of Bioaccumulation of Heavy Metals

Mushroom cultivation is becoming increasingly important around the world since it is a good food source. With declining availability of peat used for casing soil in the cultivation of mushrooms, the search for an alternative natural resource to add to the soil has become important. In this study, the value of seagrass added to casing soil for mushroom cultivation was investigated. For this purpose, the relation between bioaccumulation and the acid value of the casing soil containing different ratios of seagrass were studied, and the heavy metals in the cultivated mushrooms determined. Mushrooms bioaccumulate metals and will take them up from the casing soil. The metal content in seagrass is generally higher than peat; therefore, the transfer into the mushroom was also investigated in this study.