Zambia Agribusiness Society - ZAS C- Mushroom Cultivation: An Effective Means for Poverty Alleviation – ZAS
A mushroom is defined as “a macrofungus with a distinctive fruiting body which can be either epigeous or hypogeous. The macrofungi have fruiting bodies large enough to be seen with the naked eye and to be picked up by hand” (Chang and Miles, 1992). In a narrow sense, the word mushroom also refers only to the fruitbody. Mushrooms used to be classified into the Kingdom Plantae, but now they belong to the Kingdom Fungi due to unique fungal characteristics which draw a clear line from animals or plants. Unlike green plants, mushrooms are heterotrophs. Not having chlorophyll, they cannot generate nutrients by photosynthesis, but take nutrients from outer sources.