Organic Coprin Mushroom Grain Spawn

Coprinus comatus, the shaggy ink cap

Easy to grow, the hairy mushroom is a very fragile but delicious mushroom. Its shelf life limited to 1-2 days explains why it is almost not marketed. However, it is a good edible and its flavor is excellent. It has a melting texture at the cap, while the feet remain crunchy.

It is generally a litter fungus that appreciates substrates rich in nitrogen and organic matter. It is often found near compost, old manure, and grazed meadows. After harvesting, coprin tends to liquefy quickly and form a sort of black ink. This is its natural spore dispersal process. It must therefore be harvested very young before the edges of the caps begin to blacken and stored directly in the fridge. 

Young hairy goats can be cut into strips and dried for better conservation.

When the coprin has established itself well in outdoor cultivation, it can bear fruit for several consecutive years.

Mycelium storage: 1 month in the fridge 

 See also: “How to use our mycelia”

Our commitment to quality:

We produce our mycelia in laboratory conditions, which guarantees the purity of the varieties and optimal quality.

We produce our mycelia 100% organically and all our products are certified “ BE-BIO-01, Agriculture Belgium ” by CERTISYS.

Culture conditions & Substrates

It can be grown indoors or outdoors.

For outdoor cultivation, you can take inspiration from our instructions for growing stropharia outdoors:

https://lamycosphere.com/pages/strophaire-au-jardin

Note that coprins need more nitrogen than stropharia: straw enriched with hay, chicken, rabbit, horse manure, etc. Pelleted manure can also be used to enrich straw (+-5% pellets). One advantage is that they are usually already pasteurized.

Dead leaves and compost edges can also work well.

You will generally have better results by pasteurizing your substrate, but it is also possible to have good results without outdoor pasteurization.

In indoor cultivation the substrates are pasteurized (for example immersion for 30-60 minutes in water at 70°C.) before being sown and placed in trays. After colonization, the substrate must be covered with a casing layer which can consist of peat, or simply potting soil.

Some also mix gypsum or (slaked) lime into this casing layer.

Cultural settings

Inoculation

5-10% mycelium on grains /wet substrate

Incubation

Initiation of primordia

Fructification

These data come in particular from the book “Growing gourmet and medicinal mushrooms” by P. Stamets. They are given as indications, each myciculturist having particular growing conditions, there may be individual variations.

Productivity

200-250g of fresh mushrooms for 1kg of wet substrate, over 2 harvests.