The Response of Fruit Body Formation on Tricholoma matsutake In Situ Condition by Applying Electric Pulse Stimulator

Abstract

For the first time, we have demonstrated that the valuable matsutake mushroom Tricholoma matsutake production can be boosted up by using pulsed power as an electrical stimulation in the field of the natural habitat of this mushroom. After applying the electric stimulator to the specific area, the numbers of mushroom were increased more than twice. Remarkable changes were also observed by weight gaining of the fruit bodies which increased 67% in the first harvest and 69% in the second harvest, and besides length was increased by 65 to 113%. From the point of view of production, our experiment shows an improvement in production which was near about double than the control. We also found that the applied electrical stimulation had some long-term effect on the second harvest and the differences of 1st and 2nd harvest with respect to the control kept constant. These findings confirm the effectiveness of the implication of pulsed power technology for the proliferation of T. matsutake fruit body production in pine forest.