MUSCAT – Oman Animal and Plant Genetic Resources Centre (Mawarid) affiliated to the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation— today began experiments to cultivate rare fungi from Dhofar Governorate that have medicinal and nutritional properties.
This stage constitutes part of a research project titled “Wild Fungi in the Sultanate of Oman” being implemented by Mawarid Centre in cooperation with the College of Agricultural and Marine Sciences in Sultan Qaboos University, with support from Dhofar University and funding from the Agricultural and Fisheries Development Fund.
The cultivation project will cover different parts in Dhofar, where the fungi will be isolated from their natural environments and transferred directly to laboratories for experiments at incubators that provide specific nutritional environments for fungi in specific conditions.
Moza Mohammed Al Kharousi, Head of Research Facilities at Mawarid Centre and Project Deputy Manager, said that the success of the project would open up vistas for sustainable investments in some of these fungi. She added that experimentation and farming on these fungi assume significance within the context of challenges posed to their natural milieus, including climate change and overharvesting.
Earlier, Mawarid Centre announced the discovery, in Dhofar Governorate, of 8 species of fungi known for the first time in the world—to be added to a wide range of other rare fungi peculiar to the Sultanate of Oman and the Arabian Peninsula.
(ONA)
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