Mushrooms are a valuable food raw material because of their nutritional and taste values. Post-harvest ripening, chemical composition (9.4% water) and possible microbial contamination decrease not only organoleptic and nutritional value, but also the shelf-life.
As an objective method of evaluation of irradiated mushrooms we adopted activity determination of o-diphenol oxidase (o-DPO) which is responsible for discoloration of the edible mushrooms and altered qualitative and quantitative content of amino acids.
It was observed that doses up to 2 kGy did not cause any increase in the activity of o-DPO; irradiation also did not affect the taste. Mush rooms irradiated with doses up to 4 kGy were of good quality after 5 days of storage at 4°C, while the control samples (unirradiated) after the same time were considerably changed, probably due to post-harvest ripening. Immediately after exposure the activity of o-DPO increased in proportion to the dose used. During subsequent storage, however, no increase in o-DPO activity was observed.
Irradiation used in the range from 0.2 to 4 kGy did not affect the nutritional value of the raw material. The results are an additional confirmation that radiation can be used for efficient preservation of mushrooms.