When to Plant Wine Cap Mushrooms, Suitable Sites, and How to Prepare Coffee Husk Substrate

The wine cap mushroom, also known as the wrinkled gianthttp stropharia, wrinkled stropharia, or wine-red stropharia, is rich in protein, vitamins, minerals, polysaccharides and other nutrients, and is one of the top ten mushrooms on the international mushroom trading market. So, when should wine cap mushrooms be planted? What places are suitable for growing them? How do you prepare substrate with coffee husks?

1. When should wine cap mushrooms be planted?

When cultivating wine cap mushrooms under natural conditions, the fruiting period should occur at an air temperature of 15-27°C. In Pu'er City, sowing is generally done from September to December, and fruiting begins from December to January of the following year. Under normal circumstances, harvesting ends by the end of April.

2. What places are suitable for growing wine cap mushrooms?

They are cultivated in idle winter fields, vegetable gardens and orchard land. The following points should be noted when choosing a cultivation site: first, it should be close to a water source that is free of pollution, with convenient drainage; second, the soil should be loose and fertile, weakly acidic in nature, and rich in humus; third, it should be sheltered from wind and shaded, with a light transmission rate that reaches “three parts sun and seven parts shade”.

3. How do you prepare substrate with coffee husks?

Wine cap mushrooms can be cultivated directly with raw substrate, with pre-fermented substrate, or with sterilized substrate. With raw substrate cultivation, the substrate temperature rises during the process of spawn germination, and if the temperature is not controlled properly, the spawn can be damaged by heat; sterilized substrate cultivation has higher costs and more cumbersome procedures; pre-fermented substrate cultivation is simple to carry out, safe and practical. The author mainly introduces pre-fermented substrate cultivation techniques. The substrate should be fresh, dry, free of mold and free of rot.

Substrate preparation: the mixing ratio of coffee husks to wood shavings is 1:1, and the total amount of dry material required per mu is 5000-8000 kg. After the two substrates are evenly mixed, evenly blend in fresh wheat bran equal to 10% of the total substrate amount (dry) before spreading the material.

Treatment of the substrate: (1) Pre-wetting. Mix the coffee husks and wood shavings evenly at a ratio of 1:1, then soak them in water. The purposes of soaking are: first, to allow the substrate to absorb enough water; second, to lower the pH value of the substrate; third, to initially soften it so it is easier to handle. The soaking method is usually to soak in a water pool (first dig a pit or trough and line it with plastic sheeting) for 6-12 hours. The soaking standard for the substrate is that after natural drainage, the water content should reach 70%-75%. The way to judge this is that when the material is squeezed tightly, water drips in a broken line. (2) Pre-fermentation. Pile the substrate into a heap 1.5 m wide and 1 m high, with unlimited length, for pre-fermentation. When the material temperature rises above 60°C, maintain it for 12-36 hours, then turn the pile. Turn the pile again the next day, and after 1-2 days the pile can be broken up, the pH adjusted to 6-7, and the material spread into beds for sowing.