Enoki
F. velutipes
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Description and Taste Profile
Enoki mushrooms are another food medicine of the chinese. Also know as enokitake, snow peak or winter mushroom and veltet foot. Cap is 1-5 cm in diameter convexed when young and upturned exedding with age. Cap and stems have a bright to dull yellow to brown color and sometimes orangish brown. Gills white to yellow and attached to the stem. The stem is usually 1-3 inches and darken with age. The stem is usually converd at the bottom with a velvety fine brown hairs.
Cultivated Golden enoki mushrooms have long trailing stalks with small unexpanded caps usually all white due to growth in a dark high co2 enviroment. Unlike other cultivators Frutta Terra Enoki mushrooms look as they would in the wild, along with all the Vitamin D. They have a chewy to crunchy texture and fruity, sharp flavor. Sometimes refered to as golden nettle or bean mushrooms when cultivated in low light and CO2. To use the Golden enoki mushrooms in cooking, trim the bottom of the mushrooms off, as the mushrooms come in thick clumps. Combine fresh mushrooms with other raw vegetables or add to soups and sautees. Pair Golden enoki with fresh Thai basil, coconut, somen or soba noodles, seafood, rice, soy or ginger. Overcooking will change the preferred texture of the mushroom
These mushrooms don't have the amount of flovor as other mushrooms, but they make up for it in health benefits. The Chinese and Japanese have used the enoki mushroom in medicine, claiming it prevents and cures certain liver diseases and stomach ulcers. An anti-cancer compound found in some of the wood-decomposing fungi has been found in the enoki. Check out these recipes
Cultivation
Cultivating Enoki is sometimes a challenge due to the low fruiting tmeperature. Comercial cultivation is usually done in jars with wide mouth tops that mushrooms are fruited from. Home cultivators ofter use a bag to maintian high CO2. Enoki is a little more selective about substrates than an oyster mushroom. Stump cultivation is a good option if you are able. (INPORTANT NOTE- If you do plan to cultivate this mushroom on a stump, be sure to cross reference every mushroom picked with poisonous wood decomposing mushrooms. The Most likely of these poisonous mushrooms are in the genus Galerina and Conocybe.)
Grain spawn in recomeded for spawn develpment. More Aseptic technic is required for taking a sample of this mushroom. (see TAKING STERILE CULTER FROM WILD OR STORE BOUGHT MUSHROOM) Fruiting subsrates are failry numerous hardwoods (oak, alder, aspen, beech, birch, cottonwood, poplar, and more. Although this guy is happy with many paper products as well. Enoki will grow on douglas fir, but harvest will be substantualy decreased. Frutta Terra recomends mixing Douglas fir in at 20% ratio to hardwood. The reason of this is you will get Douglas fir's natural resistance to greeen molds (espcially Trichoderma) distributed throughout your substrate without decreasing yeilds.
If you desire the typical cultivated look to your enoki, polypropolene bottles are a good option. When using this optioin greatly speeds up harvesting. A cylander of plastic should be placed on the open top of bottles to induce the elongated stems. At Frutta Terra this mushroom is grow in a terrarium simiar to a monotub with suplimeted blue spectrum light to maximize vitamin D production. Just like us, mushrooms produce vitamin D from the sun.
AGAR
PDA, PDYA, MYA, OMA
SPAWN RUN
Incubation temperature: 70-75ºF (21-24ºC)
Relative Humidity: 95-100%
Duration: 14-18 days
CO2: >5,000 ppm
Fresh Air Exchanges: 0-1 per hour
Light Requirements: N/A
PRIMORDIA FORMATION
Initiation Temperature: 40-50ºF (4-10ºC)
Relative Humidity: 95-100%
Duration: 3-5 days
CO2- 2,000-4,000 ppm
Fresh Air Exchanges: 2-4 per hour
Light Reequirements: 20-50 lux
FRUITBODY DEVELOPMENT
Temperature: 50-60ºF (10-16ºC)
Relative Humidity: 90-95%
Duration: 5-8 days
CO2: 2,000-4,000 ppm
Fresh Air Exchanges: 2-4 per hour
Light Requirements: 20-50 lux
CROPPING CYCLE
Two to three crops, 10-12 days apart
Medicinal Properties
The active polysacharide in enoki is flamnukin. This compound is 80-90% effective against Sarcoma 180 and Ehrlich carcinoma (Ying 1987). There are also possible anti cancer properties of multiple types.