Wine Cap Stropharia Mushrooms

Scientific Name: Stropharia rugosa-annulata.

Wine Cap features a white stalk with a port wine colored cap. These crisp, slightly nutty flavored mushrooms are great for braising, sauteing and grilling. Aside from being a choice edible, Wine Cap is also a natural soil builder, weed suppressor and attractive landscape ornamental. They can quickly be grown as an annual on straw, or as a short lived perennial if planted on a denser woody substrate such as wood chips or sawdust.

Cultivation on Wood Chips: Our certified organic Wine Cap sawdust or peg spawn can be used with this method. To prepare the wood chip bed, choose an area no larger than 50 sq. ft. (one 5.5 lb. bag of sawdust spawn will cover this large of an area). Alternatively, to plant one cubic yard of chips you will need roughly 9–12 pounds of sawdust spawn. The bed should have a soil floor or mulched surface, preferably free from weeds and sod. It should also be partially shaded. Shrub beds, alleys between asparagus rows, blueberry beds, or under apple trees that have been mulched (not sprayed!) all work well.

Cultivation on Straw: Only sawdust spawn should be used for this method, NOT peg spawn. First, select a bale of straw that is as weed-free as possible. IF you have a choice, choose wheat or oat straw. The straw must be soaked in water for several days to hydrate and condition it. The result is a fully moistened and slightly fermented substrate that allows for proper growth of the Wine Cap mycelium.

Click here to view our video on Wine Cap identification.