Saturday 21 / June / 2025
Muscat: The Oman Animal and Plant Genetic Resources Centre (OAPGRC) at the Research Centre (TRC) revealed details of the “Mushroom Project”, the first-of- its-kind in the Sultanate.
Abdullah bin Hilal Al Balushi, monitoring and data collection specialist at the centre said, “The project is related to the establishment of a group of fungus farms. There are two types of fungus; small fungi that cannot be seen by the naked eye and fungi which are large in size, including the mushroom called desert truffles.
He explained that the centre completed the project of establishing a group of farms and managed to transfer and conserve 1,467 samples of fungi to the Bank of Genes at Oman Animal and Plant Genetic Resources Centre at Nizwa University.
The Centre has also saved 1,800 samples of fungi in the Sultan Qaboos University (SQU). The samples were saved in three ways: the slanting implantation, freeze drying and DNA samples. It has transferred the data to a specialised database to be a documented reference to all fungi available in the and accessible to researchers and specialists. This has led to further research and discoveries.
He pointed out that there are several economic benefits of the project, namely increasing the fertility of the soil and the use in the manufacture of bread, medicines, including penicillinium, cheese production and improvement, and some types of mushrooms used in the production of acids and medical purposes, such as the production of penicillin and in some fungi, especially in biological control.
