Chestnut Mushroom
Chestnut
Pholiota adiposa
Available as
Mother cultures (Petri dish)
Grain spawn
Plug spawn
About this strain
A striking member of the scalycap family, grown on a large scale in Asia as the “chestnut mushroom”. Its golden-yellow to rusty-brown caps, 5–10 cm across, have a slippery, sticky skin with scattered brown scales. The mushrooms grow in clusters, are firm and have a pleasant, slightly nutty flavour. Eat them only cooked.
In cultivation it is similar to nameko: it grows well on sterilised hardwood sawdust blocks and on beech, poplar or willow stumps and logs inoculated with plugs. It needs cool conditions and high humidity to fruit.
How to grow it
Preparation
- Substrate
- blocks: hardwood sawdust (fine and coarse) with approx. 20% supplement, e.g. bran, sterilised; outdoors: hardwood logs and stumps
- Spawn rate
- 1–2% on sterilised sawdust
Growing stages
Spawn run (incubation)
- Temperature
- 21–25°C
- Humidity
- 95–100%
- Duration
- approx. 14–20 days
- CO₂
- >5,000 ppm
- Fresh air
- 0–1 per hour
Primordia formation
- Temperature
- 10–16°C
- Humidity
- 95–100%
- CO₂
- 500–1,000 ppm
- Fresh air
- 4–8 per hour
- Light
- 500–1,000 lx
Pinning is triggered by cooling to 10–16°C at very high humidity.
Fruiting
- Temperature
- 15–18°C
- Humidity
- 90–95%
- CO₂
- <1,000 ppm
- Fresh air
- 4–8 per hour
- Light
- 500–1,000 lx
Harvest
- Flushes
- 2–3
- Between flushes
- approx. 2–3 weeks
Keep the substrate moist between flushes. Pick before the caps flatten.
Please note: these growing parameters bring together the experience of practising growers — a starting point, not a guarantee of results. Every grow has its own substrate, climate and equipment, and even small differences can noticeably change the yield. Adjust these values to your own conditions.
Available products
Prices are set individually — tell us what you need and how much, and we will send a quote including delivery.
Mother cultures (Petri dish)
- 1 pc.
Grain spawn
- 5 l
Plug spawn
6 × 30 mm
- 30 pcs.
- 1000 pcs.
Want to order this spawn?
Tell us what you need — we will reply with a quote and a shipping date.