Comparative studies of the cultivable king oyster mushroom [Pleurotus eryngii (DC.: Fr.) Quél.] Isolates by RAPD-PCR method

The king oyster mushroom (Pleurotus eryngii) is becoming more and more popular amongst the producers due to its excellent taste and relatively easy cultivation technology. Though investigations aiming to involve the mushroom in industrial cultivation had started in Hungary already in the 1950s, significant efforts were not made until 2002. In contrast to this, the volume of production in Europe and the United States has been growing continuously in the last decade. Although the species have been subjected to some taxonomical investigations, there are still a lot of contradictions in the taxonomic positioning of the P. eryngii species complex. In this study we investigated the genetic variability and taxonomic relationships among P. eryngii strains by using the RAPD-PCR method. Fifteen strains were analysed from our collection that represents mostly the Eastern-Hungarian habitats. Twenty-five random decamer primers were tested in the preliminary experiments and six were chosen that were used for binary cod...