Asparagus and Wine Caps

I have this idea that I'm wondering if anyone has tried before/has thoughts on. Asparagus sends up spears based on soil temperature, so mulching can make it harder/take longer for asparagus to send up the spears. I'm fairly certain I've seen posts on here describing how people have used this to extend their asparagus season by having some plants with mulch and some without.

Here's a quote from University of Minnesota Extension :

Straw and leaves can be used for mulch in asparagus beds to help smother weeds. However, these mulches also keep the soil cooler and wetter, potentially delaying or reducing asparagus spear emergence in the spring. Therefore, push the mulch away from the rows in the early spring to allow the soil to warm and encourage spear growth.

This alone is pretty cool, but the addition of mulch opens the possibility for a lot of cool things, but what my mind immediately went to was wine caps. It seems like Eric Hanson has tried this but maybe didn't document it? Here's his Post

Someone also mentioned later on in that post about asparagus beetles being a problem as they can overwinter in the mulch, I do not know enough about wine caps to know if they would help/hinder that situation. Might be better to find a different solution (ie natural predation from birds/other bugs).

Anyways this is all conceptual on my end and I have zero practical experience with growing either asparagus or wine caps. Any thoughts would be appreciated, some of my own are below:

1) Will the wine caps eat away at the mulch prior to asparagus season (early spring)? And if they will could you mulch an extra X amount or would that just delay the asparagus too much?

2) Spring crops of wine caps are known to get a lot of predator pressure from slugs/other pests, could this be problematic for asparagus yields? Conversely, is it possible that the spring flushes would be a preferred alternative to pest that would otherwise eat the asparagus?

3) I imagine the timing lines up for the fall flush of wine caps and when the asparagus needs to be cut back, maybe the dead asparagus fronds could be fed back to the wine caps/mulch layer?

4) It seems like both asparagus and wine caps can handle shade relatively well, has anyone put an asparagus patch under heavy-ish shade? Maybe this is a fun polyculture idea for under a fruit tree/area where you might spend a fair amount of time in the early spring and late fall


Thanks!

1. A little. Just add more mulch.
2. No. No.
3. Maybe. I usually don't cut back my asparagus until mid-winter, if at all.
4. Asparagus will tolerate some shade, but you probably don't want to plant it right under a big established tree. Asparagus likes deep, rich, well-drained soil. If you have clay soil, add lots of compost and sand and double-dig the beds.

In my experience, wine caps do best under fruit trees, fruit bushes and bushy veggies like tomatoes. They'll probably do just fine under asparagus. The most important thing is to make sure their bed is made with fresh wood chips mixed with sawdust. Hardwoods are best, but Doug-fir is good, too. Unsprayed straw is good as a mulch (casing layer), but hard to find. Check out the threads on here or watch the Field and Forest videos on youtube for more info. Good luck!