Species: King Stropharia (Stropharia rugoso-annulata)
King Stropharia
Common Names: King Stropharia, Wine Cap, Garden Giant
Easy to grow, easy to identify and super tasty to eat (like potatoes cooked in a light wine), King Stropharia is one of the top choices for beginners wanting to grow mushrooms outside. This saprophytic mushroom is a great addition to your garden as it is great at breaking down woody debris and organic matter releasing nutrients back into the soil. This makes it a great companion to many plants including corn, potatoes, squash and zucchini but also a welcomed addition to disturbed areas like garden pathways.
Use:
- Culinary mushroom
- Mushroom must be cooked prior to consuming
Natural Habitat:
- Hardwood forests, in soils with un-decomposed woody matter, woody debris
Cultivation difficulty:
- Outdoors: Easy
Spawn type:
Growing substrate:
Outdoors:
- Fruits well in disturbed soil rich in broken sticks or un-composted woody matter
- Hardwood mulch but we were told some strains have been trained on conifer wood mulch
Growing techniques:
Outdoors:
- Agricultural fields plowed with inoculated straw
- Wood mulch can be used in:
- Wood chip pathways
- Around fruit trees
- Vegetables beds
Inoculation to fruiting time:
Outdoors:
- From 3 to 6 months depending on inoculation rate and site temperature
- In an established bed, will typically fruit more than once a year often in the late spring and fall
Harvest, storage and yields:
- Older mushrooms can often have fly or beetle larvae, so harvest when the cap begins to open and separates from the stem
- Harvest by twisting the mushroom at the base
- Short shelf life relatively short so best to cook and eat within a few days after harvest but can be stored:
- Open Caps: refrigerated at 3-6C for up to 1 week
- Buttons: refrigerated at 3-6C for up to 2 weeks
- Dried and Rehydrate
- Good yields with larger flushes in wood chip beds, than when straw mulch is used
Thank you! I’m trying to get a mycoremediation effort of the ground at Midcoast Conservancy in Maine, and this is helping out.
Best,
Shri