To provide an apparatus for inoculating spawn, capable of widening the width of selection of an applied culture vessel without being subjected to shape restriction of the culture vessel and favorably carrying out positioning of the culture vessel, opening and closing motion of a lid and surely carrying out spawn feeding operation.

In this spawn-inoculating apparatus comprising a lid-opening and closing device 14 for opening and closing a lid of a culture vessel 1 and a spawn-feeder 9 for feeding spawn into the culture vessel 1 in which the lid is opened by the lid-opening and closing device 14, the lid-opening and closing device 14 is composed of a chuck device for interposing the lid of the culture vessel 1 from the sides and positioning the culture vessel 1 to feed position of spawn by the spawn feeder 9 and a lifting and lowering device 17 provided so as to enable a chuck device 16 to approach the mouth part of the culture vessel or separate from the mouth part and further, the lid-opening and closing device 14 is equipped with a vessel-pressing device 28 provided so as to enclose the chuck device 16 and holding the culture vessel 1 under pressure to the lower direction.