Species: King Stropharia (Stropharia rugoso-annulata)

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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:

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

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