Fascinating. I love to watch project develop. I think the really good thing about growing or gathering your own is that there is little chance that you will get anything with chemicals in or on the product.
Those are dandies! Very clean looking. I am surprised that they are growing on a resinous tree although it happens around here occasionally where hardwoods are scarce. Mostly find them on Cottonwood, Oak or Alder around here or sometimes Big Leaf Maple!
I think I may have looked at this site or others by River Valley Farm! Just recently was reading about grow tubs. Interesting method!
My wife plugged some fresh oak logs with shiitake spores or something and the next summer they bloomed. She is a fungus hunting fanatic
Checked the mushrooms today and one of the buckets has a half dozen pins protruding from the holes and signs of others starting to do the same. The second bucket seems a little slower than the first but has lots of mycelium showing at all the holes. The bags are progressing in colonization but slowly. in the picture you can see white splotches in the upper right of the bag. That is the mycelium growing. I started misting the first bucket with water so, if you believe the mushroom people, I may have harvestable shrooms in just a few days.
In just 24 hrs the mushroom pins have more than x4 in size and are forming individual heads. Also my 500 watt light quit sometime last night so the growth may have been slowed. I'll get a new light today. I'm thinking steak with onions and mushrooms by the weekend! The other bucket and the bags are slowly but surely increasing the amount of mycileum with a few small pins on the bucket.
That seems so fast but then when you think about it, it seems like overnight mushrooms pop up in the woods under the right conditions.
Growth seems to have slowed a bit for the size of the pins but individual mushroom heads are now developing. Steak and mushrooms may be a little later than hoped for. The second bucket is coming along fine but slower than this one. The clear bags are progressing slowly as well. This is a cool link. I will try this also. Disclaimer: I am NOT a vegetarian but this still looks good! .
This thread got me thinking. I just cut down a red oak so I am going to inoculate some of the tops. Just got this in today. It will be at least a year but looks like a fun project. I ordered way to many plugs and way too much wax.
That is my next project. If I can find some fresh, small oak logs here shortly I will do it. Wish you the best of success for your project!
Yall may have already researched and be aware of this... But when I looked into it, I think I read when you get your green "log" pieces to inoculate, you need to let them sit for a time (I'm thinking it was 2 weeks) before plugging so that the natural disease/fungus fighting of the wood will wear off.
Good to know. I will try to find what I read about the time frame. Maybe that was for a different type, or I misunderstood...
Got all set up this morning and inoculated some of the logs I have. Nothing fancy just a clapped out saw horse fashioned from a couple of pallets. I used red oak logs mostly and one shagbark log and one ash log. I tapped these in with a hammer and then used a punch to sink it below the surface. This and a stump was all I got out of 500 dowels. I still have almost 3.5 lb of food grade wax might have over done it. Some of the logs I really went overboard and some I sparsely inoculated. The one log has a void on the end this will probably come back to haunt me. This area I laid them will be shady once the leaves come in this spring. I laid the logs on top of slab wood from a few years ago. All gone. Last is the stump.
Not sure if this is the same site I read before, but this is reasoning for waiting a bit.... "You should not inoculate right after cutting. Tree sapwood contains natural defenses against fungal invasion, including phytoalexin-like compounds called coumarins, that accumulate in the vicinity of wounding within 24 hours and continue increasing in concentration for the next few days. Because of this, it’s best to wait a minimum of three days to allow the compounds to disperse before inoculating the logs. “The rationale is to wait a week or two after harvest for antifungal agents in the logs to decline,” Ochterski said. Don’t wait much longer than that, because you want to make sure that other fungi don’t get a head start." Quote from: Growing Shiitake Mushrooms: Step-by-Step Guide to an Agroforestry Crop | S
I would be doing this right now If I had the logs to inoculate! Looks like a smooth operation you have there!
Here is the current state of affairs at the mushroom farm. Growth has been a lot slower than what I was lead to expect but it is steady. The second bucket is coming along well and in the bags the mycelium is still expanding but very slowly. Everything seems successful so far just much slower than expected. Probably the very cold conditions in the garage. During the coming cold snap I will definitely have the portable shop lights going under the table!
When you do it have help and have everything at a comfortable standing level. I had to slightly crouch and it was taxing by the end. My wife left about 3/4 of the way through and I think it took about 3 1/2 hours for 500 dowels. Also err on the side lighter logs, some of these are going to be heavy if I force fruiting by soaking them. Now the easy part, wait.
