Lentinula edodes is a very important edible mushroom and is widely cultivated in Asian countries using a large number of varieties. National Institute of Forest Science (NIFoS) conducts Golden Seed Project to develop new shiitake varieties and we examined cultural characteristics of seven candidate strains compared to three existing cultivars. As a result, optimal growth temperature and mycelial growth on potato dextrose agar (PDA) for seven days at the optimal temperature were 27°C, 55 mm in Sanbaekhyang, 27°C, 50 mm in Sanjo701ho, and 25°C, 49 mm in Sanjo707ho, respectively. Five of the candidate strains except NIFoS 3309 and 3310 showed the highest growth at 25°C. Mycelial growth of NIFoS 2889 and 2905 showed the fastest (60 mm) and the slowest (32 mm), respectively. Six strains showed bulging on surface of media in sawdust bag cultivation for 30 days. In particular, the cultiver, Sanjo701ho had heavy bulging. Four strains (NIFoS 624, 971, 3310, and 3363) did not show bulging and NIFoS 971 grew slower than the others. Keywords : Browning, Characteristics, Lentinula edodes, Mycelial growth, Tunicate

• Youngae Park(Division of Wood Chemistry and Microbiology, National Institute of Forest Science)
• Sooyoung Seo(Division of Wood Chemistry and Microbiology, National Institute of Forest Science)
• Yeongseon Jang(Division of Wood Chemistry and Microbiology, National Institute of Forest Science)
• Kang-Hyeon Ka(Division of Wood Chemistry and Microbiology, National Institute of Forest Science)