The Wine Cap Stropharia (Stropharia rugoso-annulata - WCS) is a native species in our eastern hardwood and other temperate forests. They emerge with the violets in springtime, and again in late fall - sometimes in the same place, sometimes traveling many yards from previous sites. Appearing like small red stones, within a day they are fully formed mushrooms. We find it likes the shade of perennial plants and will fruit in the drip edge underneath these plants. This garden ally is a cultivated favorite in Europe, where it is known as the Garden Giant, though gardeners cultivate it worldwide.
Mycelial beds of WCS make excellent filters for surface runoff water capturing both phosphorus and coliform bacteria. This ability to thrive in the microbial milieu makes it a good candidate for land remediation, soil building, and water protection. WCS is easily cultivated on fresh hardwood chips, straw, and other woody agriculture and forest byproducts.
Rather than maximizing square footage with a bag of spawn, I prefer to make a mother bed of woodchips to expand the mycelium with the intention of using the colonized woodchips to spread into fresh substrate and naturalize the mushroom in different places on the farm.
Cultivating a Mother Bed:
Step 1: Select a shady spot along your daily garden meanders. Noticing your bed is the main part of caring for it. This also ensures you can irrigate the beds when dry, and get the mushrooms before the critters do.
Step 2: Place cardboard or straw on the ground, or not. Both can be used to suppress plant growth, but you can just grow on the earth.
Step 3: Spread woodchips or straw about 2" deep. Water very well. Placing spawn on dry substrate will dehydrate it and kill mycelium.
Step 4: Without opening the spawn bag, break the spawn up into smaller than 2" pieces.
Step 5: Cut the bag open on one top corner to create a spout, and sprinkle spawn into the substrate. Get a good smell of the spawn when you open the bag. Recognizing this smell will help you identify the mycelium as the bed colonizes.
Step 6: Add about 1-2" layer of woodchips over the spawn. Water.
Step 7: Layer spawn over the second layer of woodchips. Water.
Step 8: Add another layer of woodchips. If you are building in the fall or winter, protect the mycelium from extreme cold and desiccation by adding a mulch layer to the bed using any or all of the following: cardboard, straw, leaves, evergreen branches- any branches will help prevent leaves from blowing away.
Step 9: Monitor and maintain moisture in the bed and check every few weeks to see the mycelial growth from the spawn to and throughout the substrate. Use woodchips colonized with mycelium to move the mushroom around and expand its habitat by adding it to fresh substrates in new beds, pathways, or other friendly places.
Mushrooms usually form in the spring and fall about 6-12 months after inoculating your bed. Harvest mushrooms while they are still in the button stage, this will reduce the number of insect larvae you will add to your diet. If the mushrooms grow larger and are full of larvae, see if your chickens or fish will eat them. Plant the stem butts with the root-like mycelial strands attached in fresh woodchips, sawdust, and/or wet delaminated cardboard. To maintain your fruiting areas and naturalize WCS to your place, add fresh chips to existing beds in the garden and mix with the older myceliated woodchips.
Be sure to leave a few mushrooms to mature and sporulate This is how WCS evolves and adapts to your place. We leave the big ones to grow Garden Giants.
And remember: Keep It Moist
Hello,
We have never grown WCS on Douglas Fir. We encourage you to experiment and let us know!
Will Douglas fir chips work for the substrate? They are from a month ago but they have been sealed in a large paper yard debris bag.