• Valvariella volvacea is a mushroom well-adapted to high temperature.
• It optimally grows at 30-35 c.
• To breed cold-tolerant strains to expand cultivation region and season, thebasidiospores and gills of V.
• Volvacea were treated with chemical mutagens, ethyl methane sulfonate (EMS) and diethyl sulfate (DES), respectively.
• Two cold-tolerant stains, stains Em-16 and Em-18, were successfully obtained from EMS mutagenesis of gills through 0 C screening, colony morphology screening ahd fruiting screening.
• The biological efficiencies of Em-16 and Em-18 strains were 24.55% and 23.61% in the first flush at 27 c and their biological efficiencies were 46.1% and 40.5% higher than the control strain V41, respectively.
• Their fruiting bodies had a longer storage life at 16 c, compared with the control stain V41.
• Amplified fragment length polymorphism analysis shows that the stains Em-16 and Em-18 are new stains.