Cultivation Difficulty: Moderate
Type: Edible
Substrate: Hardwood sawdust and paper products
Colonization/Fruiting Temperatures: 70-75F/40-60F
Supplied As:Culture in slant or petri dish*

A 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 (or Enokitake) 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.

We have witnessed successful fruiting in a quart jar directly from sterilized grass seed and this species will also spontaneously fruit in petri dishes on malt agar when refrigerated.

*Note: Culture supplied as living mycelium in a test tube slant or grown on sterile media in a petri dish. Culture can be stored under refrigeration for several months. Slants are best suited for long distance travel, international shipments, or long term culture storage. To ensure freshness of culture, slant and plate requests are made to order, please allow 2-4 weeks for processing and shipment. Please choose between Slant or Petri Dish below.