Cultivating the Wine Cap Mushroom While Building Soil Health and Suppressing Plant Disease – an Innovative and Economical Approach to Two Common Agricultural Problems

View the project final report

Commodities

• Vegetables: tomatoes
• Miscellaneous: mushrooms

Practices

• Crop Production: biological inoculants, conservation tillage, cover crops, double cropping, intercropping, multiple cropping, nutrient cycling, nutrient management, organic fertilizers, water management
• Education and Training: on-farm/ranch research
• Pest Management: biological control, competition, integrated pest management, mulches - general, physical control
• Production Systems: integrated crop and livestock systems, permaculture
• Soil Management: nutrient mineralization, organic matter, soil analysis, soil chemistry, soil microbiology, soil physics, soil quality/health

Description of farm or ranch and project coordinator background
Field and Forest Products grows mushrooms commercially for farm markets and co-op accounts and has also
been producing mushroom spawn and providing growing supplies to commercial cultivators and hobby growers
for over 30 years. Field and Forest Products also supports its farmer customers by answering grower questions
about how to grow specialty mushrooms profitably. The 41 acre farm grows and markets Shiitake and Wine cap
as well as other specialty fungi, with special attention to polyculture of Wine cap and Almond Agaricus in the
garden and high tunnel setting. Field and Forest Products Inc. is co-owned and operated by Mary Ellen Kozak
and Joe Krawczyk. The couple are authors of several mushroom cultivation related publications, most notably,
Growing Shiitake in a Continental Climate. Field and Forest Products recently teamed up with mycologist Lindsey
Bender who specializes in soil microbial ecology, experimental design, and statistics. She comes from a diverse
ecological background and has a strong interest in research and development focusing on sustainable practices
and improving soil health.

Scott Reuss is a participant and collaborator on this project. He is the head of the agriculture, horticulture, and
soils department for Marinette, Florence, and Oconto Counties in Wisconsin. He has graciously guided us on the
science behind this research and assisted in making improvements to the project since the 2014 NCR-SARE
grant proposal submission of a similar project that did not receive funding.

Problem
Improving Soil Health:
Plant productivity and growing success is highly dependable on soil health. Unfortunately, areas such as much of
the North Central region are less conducive to growing because of low natural soil quality or the site’s
management history. Soil organic matter (SOM) is critical for soil fertility, structure, stability, nutrient retention,
soil erosion, and water holding capacity. Much of the North Central region is covered by sandy soils that have
inherently low agricultural value due to both low organic matter and microbial activity. These soils require
intensive and oftentimes costly soil manipulation to be productive. Options for amending soil organic matter
include adding a variety of materials from finished compost to raw organic amendments (Cooperband 2002).
Compost can be expensive to purchase and the on-site production of a sufficient amount of compost for soil
amendment is time consuming. The addition of raw or slightly processed high carbon organic materials directly to
the soil is simple and easy, but can take a long time to decompose.

Biopesticide Potential:
Plant disease has a direct negative impact on grower economics and is especially problematic in low-quality
sandy soils. Chemical pesticides used to combat disease have known negative implications to environmental
health (Chet and Inbar, 1994). Biological control of soil-borne plant pathogens is a potential alternative to the use
of chemical pesticides. There are already a number of biological agents (microbial biopesticides) commercially
available for use in crop protection, but criticisms of biopesticides include the organism’s speed of action,
ecological fitness/persistence in the environment, and application (Butt and Copping 2000).

Solution

Improving Soil Health:
Soil microorganisms are the basis of the soil food web – they decompose organic matter and recycle nutrients
making them re-available to plants and increasing soil organic matter (Figure 3a). The addition of organic matter
is one of the most direct and effective practices to improve soil quality (Scott 2010, Figure 3b). The Wine Cap
fungus, Stropharia rugosa-annulata (SRA), is an edible specialty mushroom that excels at rapid decomposition of
straw and woodchips (Ukoima et al. 2009, Bruhn et al. 2010). By growing Wine Cap mushrooms, there is both an
increase in organic matter additions and microbial activity to the soil surface, which would presumably lead to an
increase in soil organic matter (Figure 3c). Little research has been done utilizing cultivatable fungi in this matter.
The added benefit of this innovative approach is the unique mushroom crop. Cultivation and sale of gourmet
mushrooms is a growing niche in the sustainable foods market where Wine Cap mushrooms are valued at
approximately $10/lb. in this region (with demand doubling annually since its introduction in 2012). Other regional
growers are reporting similar demand.

Biopesticide Potential:
The Wine Cap fungus is an ideal candidate as a biopesticide because it is conditioned for vigorous outdoor
cultivation, easy to grow, and provides a unique, edible mushroom crop. There is already anecdotal and
preliminary evidence (unpublished data) of disease suppression (Mary Kozak, F&FP and Robert Voshell, UWV) of
blight on tomatoes.

1) Test the ability of the wine cap fungus to speed up the process of increasing soil organic matter by adding organic material to soil surface.

2) Test the ability of the wine cap fungus to decrease disease presence and severity in tomato plants.

3) Evaluate the monetary value of adding a secondary mushroom crop to existing plant agriculture systems.