Growing mushrooms on logs
nikaia
Posts: 5
I wonder if you can help.
In march 2017 I bought grey oyster mushroom and shiitake mushroom mycelium in dowels and also loose from Apogee.co.uk which in the meantime seems to have ceased trading.
I drilled well spaced holes, inserted dowels in 3 hard wood logs, I then covered each hole with melted wax and positioned the logs outside on an incline,behind my garage (north facing) and sprinkled the logs with water from time to time.
I was told that Shiitake can take up to 9 months, and grey oyster mushroom in 6 months. We are now in November but nothing happened..
Where the wax came off, ( on a couple of holes) I can see the mycelium.
Any idea what I should do to get any result? Could the mycelium I bought, have been out of date?
I believe to have followed the procedures correctly...
Should I wait until next march?
Many thanks for any help
Alberto
Posts
There are charts published on the internet with the various types of hard wood to be used
on specific types of mushrooms.
I was told that my logs were from a hardwood tree, but cannot remember its name....
I live in Leeds and the logs were given to me by a Yorkshire farmer....
I have never done this myself but there was a feature on the Beechgrove garden series with Chris Beardshaw doing this. They produce fact sheets on line so there may be more info on there that might help.
I would wait till next Spring based on info from mushroombox.co.uk. They say that oyster can take up to a year to fruit and shitake up to 2 years. Keeping the logs damp seems to be important so maybe your occasional watering needs to be more frequent. Seems like the only logs to avoid are yew and other conifers/softwoods because of resins and potential toxicity. Time from cutting logs to inoculation with spawn also seems to matter, 3 to 6 weeks after cutting is recommended.
I bought two lots of spawn a couple of years ago, one for sowing in compost and one for drilled logs. I followed the instructions quite carefully and never got a single mushroom. A couple of years before, I received as a gift a small pack of spawn with instructions for growing it on an unwanted paperback book which you first soak in water. That was quite successful, and fun to do, we had a few ounces of mushrooms but they had no more flavour than if they'd come from the supermarket.
Many thanks for all your advice.
I shall wait till next spring, water more often and if it fails, buy a fresh supply
of mychelium.
For all those who are still interested in the subject, this is the reply from Evelyn of Tern TV:
The spawn injected dowels are placed in the hardwood logs so that mycelia can develop and grow. Only when there is enough growth will mushrooms appear. This can take more than a year, depending on growing conditions, so don't give up yet. If you have seen growth, leave well alone. The fungus will be 'feeding' on the wood and spreading. In time, you should have mushrooms to harvest. Once that stage has been reached, you can expect other harvests in subsequent years.
The logs must be kept moist. This should not be a problem during winter, but in summer, you may need to soak the logs, not just sprinkle them with water.
Be patient for some time yet. I hope that you are rewarded.
Evelyn
****
I hope this information will help us all in restoring faith in the "poor" fungi.
all the best
Alberto
Cheers Philippa !!
good Luck
Alberto
I do have my own mushroom business and I’m successful. It’s not hard to grow mushrooms on logs. Back in 2015, I bought shiitake mushroom logs from Agrinoon, provides mushroom products, for my business and it went well after implementing so many experiments. I can share some steps:
- First of all, get prepared to grow the mushroom
- You need to prepare your mushroom substrate
- Inoculation
- Incubation
- Fruiting
- And, Harvest & Growing More Crops
They too helped me out to grow one more mushroom type and that is Oyster mushroom and I’m enjoying it. Everybody loves it and who doesn’t like to enjoy this delicious and healthy food. I love to experiment with new things in my business and who knows if one of my experiments will work and help my business grow more profitably. It will sure take some time to get your fruitful result and you should definitely listen to some podcasts related to growing mushrooms, read books and then take action.