Development of cultivation method for Leucopaxillus giganteus fruiting bodies in Cryptomeria japonica artificial forests

ABSTRACT

Sugi (Cryptomeria japonica) forests are devastated and abandoned in Japan. Although mushroom products are profitable, with the marketable ones expected to originate from Japanese forests, a few fungi mainly develop fruiting bodies in sugi forests in nature. With white mushrooms (Sugi-take) being popularly eaten by local residents in Mie prefecture, it is thus important that the mode of occurrence of white mushrooms found in the forests is investigated to determine the possibility of marketable forest products in sugi forests. In the phylogenetic tree constructed based on the internal transcribed region of rDNA, white mushrooms were divided into two groups; Leucopaxillus giganteus (a synonym of Aspropaxillus giganteus) and Aspropaxillus, and Clitocybe sp. and L. tricolor. The cultivation method of L. giganteus, which is the most functional mushroom among the three species, was examined. L. giganteus fruiting bodies formed a fairy ring at a distance of 1 m from the point of burial of 40 kg media in the sugi forest. L. giganteus fruiting body formation was observed until 5 years post-inoculation. The yield was 3.8–13.4 kg/year and the total yield for 5 years was 43.2 kg. The fruiting body yield buried in spring was higher than that buried in autumn. The highest yield was obtained when 40 kg of media was buried in the forest soil. This study established a method for cultivating L. giganteus in the sugi forest of Japan.

KEYWORDS:

• Artificial cultivation
• leucopaxillus giganteus
• morphological characteristics
• phylogenetic tree
• sugi forest

Acknowledgments

We thank Mr. Toshimitsu Sumiya and Mr. Mitsuo Kawade for their helpful and instructive discussions. The funders had no role in the study design, data analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. We would like to thank Editage (www.editage.com) for English language editing.

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported, in part, by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (KAKENHI No. 19K23686 to EH) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Sciences and, in part, by a research grant from the Iwade Research Institute of Mycology.