Growing King Stropharia Mushrooms on Wood Chip Beds.
Siting:
Dappled sunlight/partial shade. King Stropharia is less fussy than others & can actually grow in quite sunny areas but, does prefer dappled sunlight. Its a fungi that naturally grows along woodland edges so avoid deep shade. Constructing the bed in a place you walk by often is ideal & also ensures you won’t miss it fruiting.
Bed materials:
Beds can be constructed with wooden boards, logs or have no edges whatsoever to contain the substrate.
If the area for your bed is grass or weedy its best to lay a single layer of overlapped cardboard on the area to suppress weed growth whether you choose to give the bed edges with boards or logs not. This also creates a barrier initially between the mycelium you are about to introduce and any native fungi that may already be present in the soil below reducing competition between them giving your mycelium the upper hand in colonising the wood chip.
Substrate:
The #1 choice of growing medium/substrate for King Stropharia is fresh, untreated, hardwood wood chips. Avoid pine or coniferous wood chips for this mushroom species. Fresh wood chips are important in that you want the medium to be as sterile as possible to reduce the risk of contamination of other fungi or bacteria taking hold in the bed. Older hardwood chips can be used but, should be cold fermented in a barrel of water for a fortnight beforehand to sterilise them. Fresh straw would be the next best substrate followed by fresh hardwood sawdust, leaf mulch & lastly, a cold compost pile with plenty of woody material.
Spawning the mushroom bed:
Once your site is chosen and ground prepared, lay a 2 inch layer of wood chips out evenly on the area. Next, break up the mycelium (spawn) into smaller pieces & distribute it evenly across the layer of wood chips. Cover this mycelium layer with a further 2 inches of wood chips. You could choose to do 2 layers of mycelium alternated with a 2 inch layer of wood chip in between like “lasagne” instead of just the one. Either works. Just make sure the last layer of mycelium is covered with a good 2 inches of wood chip. Do not mix the mycelium up with the wood chips to try & spread it evenly within the substrate, this will slow down progress for fruiting. You are looking to encourage a solid band (or two) of mycelium to run horizontally throughout the bed which will eventually form into a ‘mycelial mat’. A flat topped bed 5-6 inches deep is ideal.
Once you have layered it all in, give the entire bed a good watering. The bed should be left now undisturbed for about 6 months. During prolonged dry spells, water the bed to avoid it completely drying out although, be sure not to waterlog it.
Fruiting:
Once the bed is fully colonised, fruiting is not far away. King Stropharia has a wide fruiting temperature range; between 10°C - 20°C. Rainfall in late summer/early fall eventually coaxes the bed into fruiting. You may also wish to try encouraging a flush at this time by giving it a good water instead. As an example, in the 1st photo at the very top, the mother bed was started on April 19th & fruited for the first time just a few months later on August 22nd.
Identify your mushrooms:
If you are new to King Stropharia, its wise to positively identify the mushrooms before you cook and consume them. Invaders of other species are always a possibility especially in outdoor situations. Plenty of sources in books or online to do so, but, this type is quite easy even for beginners.
Harvesting your mushrooms:
Ideally, you want to harvest them while the caps are still curled under with hardly any gills showing. In this state they provide the best flavour. Twist the mushroom out of the bed & the stem end you will see it is covered in mycelium. These ends can be cut off and mixed with mulch materials to be used for garden beds or expanded on cardboard or other material.
Cooking your mushrooms:
King Stropharia lends itself well to the flavours of nuts like cashews, hazelnuts walnuts & pecans. We like them slightly caramelised with onions, garlic & cashews or hazelnuts served with toast.
Maintenence:
You will soon discover that the mycelium of King Stropharia is quite a hungry beast. After fruiting finishes in autumn, its time to top up the bed with a layer of fresh wood chip or other matter like fresh straw or leaf mould to ensure the mycelium is fed over winter & stays strong.
A mother patch can be expanded to other areas to create new beds or “satellite colonies” to expand production after the bed is fully colonised. Simply create a new bed & move a mass of mycelium from your mother patch to the new satellite colonies to create more beds. Mycelium can be mixed with new substrate at a ratio of 1:20. As much as ⅔’s of the mycelium may be removed from the bed to create new colonies. Top up the mother patch with more fresh wood chip or other suitable material. The mycelium in the bed will then move to rebuild its mycelial mat. There is a limit to its vigour over time, conditions & availability of nutrients. Regeneration via stem butts & spores is another avenue of experimentation. I will be adding some results of experiments with this here at some point as well as the potato/mushroom bed experiment I’m currently doing. 😄
Another way I am experimenting with the beds you might also like to try is to lay fresh logs onto the bed after constructing it where the mycelium hopefully will begin to also colonise the logs. These can then also then be moved. Mycologist & “mycelial herdsman” Paul Stamets calls these “mycelium rafts”. See his short video on it here.
Spawn & Grow Kits Available.
King Stropharia spawn 2.5kg - £15
Full outdoor grow kit including spawn + fresh hardwood wood chip for 1m x 1m bed - £40