A while ago my Co Worker Jules came up with an idea for using mushrooms to turn wood chip into compost. We are lucky enough to be at a site where tree surgeons regularly dump wood chip for us for free.
After some googling it was found out that the mushrooms that survive best on wood chip and quickly convert it into compost are ‘Winecaps’ (Stropharia rugosoannulata). Not only that but they are edible as well!
Jules sourced some spawn and we mixed it in with our wood chip pile. The recent rain has produced the first flush of winecaps! This is quite early in the year we weren’t expecting them so soon.
I will report back as we go along. If this works it will be a game changer! Free compost and edible mushrooms… its a win win
Mark
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I’m really keen to try this but have read that you should use hard wood chips. The wood chip that I can get for free is usually a mix of soft, hard and evergreen do you think it would work ok on a mixed medium. Did you add straw or just use woodchip? And finally what was the harvest like?
We’ve used what I think is a mix of hard and soft wood. It has worked and the mycelium seems to be growing well. We had a flush of mushrooms in the Autumn… not loads but 2 or 3 punnets worth. We are hoping for more this year. We don’t add straw. IT seemed to work better on fairly shallow piles of wood chip… 6 inches or so. I think the deeper piles dried out too much at the tops.
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