Coral Tooth Fungus

Hericium coralloides

Available as

Mother cultures (Petri dish)
Grain spawn
Sawdust spawn
Plug spawn

About this strain

The coral tooth fungus is one of the most beautiful wood-growing mushrooms. It forms creamy-white to pale yellow, many-branched fruiting bodies; tufts of short spines hang from the branches, so the whole looks like sea coral or hoarfrost. It has a delicate, slightly sweet flavour and a tender texture — excellent fried in butter.

In cultivation it resembles other Hericium species but fruits better in the cool. It grows on sterilised hardwood sawdust blocks with added bran and on beech and other hardwood logs inoculated with plugs. In Poland it is rare and protected.

How to grow it

Preparation

Substrate: blocks: hardwood sawdust (fine and coarse) with approx. 20% supplement, e.g. bran, sterilised; outdoors: hardwood logs
Spawn rate: 1–2% on sterilised sawdust

Growing stages

Spawn run (incubation)
Temperature
21–24°C
Duration
14–20 days
Primordia formation
Temperature
shock at approx. 14–16°C
Humidity
95–100%
Duration
3–5 days
CO₂
500–700 ppm
Fresh air
5–8 per hour
Light
approx. 500 lx
Pinning is triggered by cooling and fresh air.
Fruiting
Temperature
12–18°C
Humidity
90–95%
CO₂
500–1,000 ppm
Fresh air
5–8 per hour
Light
approx. 500 lx

Harvest

Flushes: 2
Between flushes: approx. 2 weeks

Pick while the mushroom is white and the branches tender — with age it yellows and toughens. Yield: approx. 15% of fresh substrate weight.

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.