| Summary: | Spent mushroom waste (SMW) is a mushroom-growing material that is left over from the harvest of various mushroom flushes. Normally SMW are left abandoned or discarded at the end of the development cycle. The handling and disposal of SMW remains one of the major environmental problems in mushroom producing countries. SMW can be used as growing medium however it is high of salinity where it will affect plant growth performance. Peat soil are capable to minimize the salinity due to acidic condition of peat. Therefore, peat soil was mixed with SMW in order to reduce the salinity of SMW. The treatments were constructed based on different ratio of SMW and peat soil which consist of 1:0 (T0), 1:1 (T1), 1:2 (T2), 2:1 (T3) and 1:3 (T4) and these treatments were arranged in Randomised Complete Block Design (RCBD), along with four replications. The medium were analysed for chemical properties such as salinity, pH, extractable phosphorus and exchangeable K, Ca, Mg content. The parameters of plant growth performance were measured such as plant height, leaves number, leaves width, branches number, roots length and plant biomass. Peat soil proved significantly able to reduce the salinity of spent mushroom waste and subsequently increased the growth parameter of spinach. However, the high ratio of SMW (T3) and high ratio of peat (T4) were reducing the plant biomass. The ratio of 1:1 (T1) and ratio 1:2 (T2) shows optimum chemical properties as well as shows good plant growth performance which these ratios can be suggested for growing medium. © 2024, Malaysian Society of Soil Science. All rights reserved.
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