Culinary Profile
How to grow Enoki at home
Flammulina velutipes, White enoki
Updated
Enoki (Flammulina velutipes), also called enokitake or golden needle mushroom, takes about 43 days to grow at home, from spawn to the end of the first harvest. Colonize at 22 °C (72 °F) in the dark, then fruit at 15 °C (59 °F) and 93% humidity with little fresh air and no light.
Needs cold fruiting and little fresh air for supermarket-long stems.
Use this profile on your chamber
What conditions does Enoki need at each stage?
| Stage | Days | Temperature | Humidity | Fresh air | Light |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Colonization | 18 | 22 °C (72 °F) | 90% | little fresh air: fan runs 15 s every 60 min | Dark |
| Pinning | 7 | 16 °C (61 °F) | 95% | little fresh air: fan runs 15 s every 90 min | Dark |
| Fruiting | 18 | 15 °C (59 °F) | 93% | little fresh air: fan runs 15 s every 90 min | Dark |
How long does Enoki take to grow?
About 43 days from the start of colonization to the end of the first harvest window.
- Day 1 to 18: Colonization
- Day 19 to 25: Pinning
Keep still and wet to pile up pins.
- Day 26 to 43: Fruiting
Little fresh air stretches stems. More air makes stocky wild-type caps.
Get dates for each stage from your own start day with the grow timeline calculator, or compare every species in how long mushrooms take to grow.
Light recipe
No light needed. It grows in the dark.
Light details
Commercial long-stem enoki is grown with little light. Sakamoto 2004 showed a cold dark room makes long pale pinhead fruits; light then forms a cap. This recipe keeps both phases at 0 h so stems stay long. That is a morphology choice from the paper, not a lux number.
WS2812 blue is roughly 465 to 475 nm. The RGB mix is an approximation of cited wavelengths, not a measured spectrum.
| Phase | Hours on | White | RGB mix |
|---|---|---|---|
| colonization | 0 h on | white 0% | RGB 0 / 0 / 0 |
| fruiting | 0 h on | white 0% | RGB 0 / 0 / 0 |
| pinning | 0 h on | white 0% | RGB 0 / 0 / 0 |
What goes wrong when growing Enoki?
What does this profile watch for?
A Shrooly cannot reach true 4 to 10 °C enoki rooms. This profile uses the coolest firmware target (15 °C) and very little fresh air as a chamber approximation.
No pins after colonization
Make sure the block is fully colonized first. Then check that the chamber reaches the pinning conditions: 16 °C (61 °F), 95% humidity, and little fresh air. Pins need more fresh air than colonization. More on this.
Dry, cracked, or curled caps
Usually humidity is too low, or air is blowing straight on the mushrooms. This profile holds 93% humidity while fruiting. More on this.
Green, black, or slimy patches
Patches that are not white mycelium are usually contamination such as green mold or bacteria. Bag the block, take it out of the chamber, and clean the chamber before the next grow. More on this.
Kit or block doing nothing? Work through grow kit not growing. To check your fresh air, put your chamber size and fan into the fresh air planner.
Enoki growing FAQ
What temperature does Enoki grow at?
In this profile Enoki colonizes at 22 °C (72 °F) and fruits at 15 °C (59 °F). Colonization: 22 °C (72 °F). Pinning: 16 °C (61 °F). Fruiting: 15 °C (59 °F).
What humidity does Enoki need?
93% while fruiting. Colonization: 90%. Pinning: 95%. Fruiting: 93%.
How long does Enoki take to grow?
About 43 days with this profile: 18 days of colonization, 7 days of pinning, 18 days of fruiting. Real blocks vary, so move on when the block is ready, not only when the days run out.
How much light does Enoki need?
Colonization: dark. Pinning: dark. Fruiting: dark.
How much fresh air does Enoki need?
Little fresh air: fan runs 15 s every 90 min while fruiting. Colonization runs with little fresh air.
Is Enoki good for beginners?
It is one of the harder species in this library. Try an oyster first if you have never grown before.
Related grow guides
- How to grow Blue Oyster
- How to grow Button / Cremini
- How to grow Cordyceps militaris
- How to grow Cordyceps: deep orange under pink light
- How to grow mushrooms at home
- What is the easiest mushroom to grow at home?
- Grow kit vs monotub vs smart chamber
- How much humidity and fresh air do mushrooms need?
- All species and conditions
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Sources
- Sakamoto 2004 enoki. Yuichi Sakamoto, Influence of light on the morphological changes that take place during the development of the Flammulina velutipes fruit body, Mycoscience 45 (2004). A temperature drop induces fruiting in the dark. Dark fruits are long, pale, and pinhead. Light then forms a cap.
- Sakamoto 2018. Yuichi Sakamoto, Influences of environmental factors on fruiting body induction, development and maturation in mushroom-forming fungi, Fungal Biology Reviews 32 (2018). Light is a fruiting cue for many basidiomycetes. Blue light is the usual photomorphogenesis signal. Agaricus bisporus is called out as not needing light for a cap. Flammulina velutipes can fruit in the dark as a long stem with a tiny cap.
- Stamets. Paul Stamets, Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms, Ten Speed Press. Used here as a general cultivation reference. This recipe does not take a photoperiod or lux number from a cited page in that book.