King Stropharia in blue spruce chips?

hi all,

new to the permies community here ~

I got some delicious woodchips delivered to me this week and when I told my permaculture friend that I wanted to innoculate the chips with king stropharia, he said that it wouldn’t work since the chips are from a conifer. I can’t seem to find more information on why that is, or if that has worked for people or not. Can anyone lend me information on this subject? I’m more interested in the mycelium for soil health than fruiting bodies of mushrooms though that would be a big plus. Are there other varieties of mushroom spawn that might do better in a conifer chip bed?

thanks in advance!

B

Hello Brooks,

If you just do an internt search on the subject, you'll most likely find more technical answers to that question. From my understanding, it is because of species unique abilities and features, interacting with its environment, mainly the constituants within the substrate,  which alows the fungi to flourish or perish. Essentially the different compunds within the substrate, like natural antifungal compunds, inhibit the growth of the mycelium, unless that species of mycelium has developed ways to coexist or nutralize, those fungal inhibiting compunds. Trees have developed ways to fight fungi, as part of their immune system and survival strategy; however, certian fungi, have found ways around those stratigies, meaning some wood substrates are species spacific for mycelium development. King Stropheria is great for almost any hardwood species, so my recommendation for fruiting bodies on conifer chips would be Blewit spawn, as they are a good species for most coniferous media, with similar techniques for bed set up and growth needs.. Beyond that, the wood chips will naturally grow all kinds of fungi just composting naturally, and that fungal dominated comost will meet your fungal requirements to boost biodiversity in your soil, unless your refering to mycorrhizal fungi, which is a different topic entirely.

Let me know if that answers your question.

that answers my question and then some. thanks so much for your input!

If I had some spruce chips I wanted to grow mushrooms on, I'd probably try Phoenix oysters.  Stamets says they grow naturally on these trees in the West, and oysters are about as easy to grow on wood chips as stropharia.  Chicken of the woods is another recommended for conifers, but I've never grown those so don't know how easy they are to grow or if wood chips are a good substrate for them.

Some of my stropharia beds are under some doug fir trees, and the mycelium do slowly move into the nearby fir needles and dead branches, but I get the impression it isn't their favorite due to the slowness of movement.  In another area that had random hardwood materials about the mycelium seem to move much faster.

As has been brought up, conifer trees have just a few mushrooms that can tolerate the antifungal compounds of spruce, fir, pine trees.

King Stroph will prefer oak, hickory, poplar, for their substrate.

Chicken of the woods is best grown either in chip bags or stumps of the conifers.

Most oysters like oak, hickory and other hardwoods.

Lion's mane will do best in oak but will fruit in hickory and other hardwoods.

Redhawk