Flammulina velutipes : Enoki Mushroom, Commercial White Culture Syringe

Material provided in sterile aqueous solution using 10cc BD Luer-Lok syringes. One 1.5in 16ga needle will be provided for each syringe.

Cultivation Difficulty: Moderate
Type: Edible
Substrate: Hardwood sawdust and paper products
Colonization/Fruiting Temperatures: 70-75F/40-60F

Description: This is a small mushroom with caps less than 2 inches in diameter. In nature this species has a yellow to orange cap with a dark velvet coated stem. The strain offered here has been selected for white coloration with small caps and elongated stems with no velvet coating. These traits are ideal for bottle culture in which it forms tight clusters of noodle-like mushrooms. The main difficulty with the species is that it requires fairly cool conditions to form mushrooms. Otherwise, Enoki is relatively easy to grow with similar environment and substrate requirements to the oyster mushrooms. Like oyster mushrooms, Enoki is very sensitive to CO2 and light. High CO2 levels cause extreme stem elongation and insufficient light causes poorly developed or nonexistent caps.

Images show this strain fruiting in a quart jar directly from sterilized grass seed. This species will also spontaneously fruit in Petri dishes on malt agar when refrigerated.