With Summer on the way, it’s time to start thinking about some home cultivation. Here is some advice from The Mushroom People.
Selection Of Healthy Trees
The trees need to have medium-thick bark. The best choice is Oaks. If Oaks are not possible, ironwood, hornbeam, sweet gum or hard maple. Unsuitable trees are pine, fir or cedar. Any other softwoods species are also not suitable.
Cut your logs in the Fall, Winter or Spring
Firewood cutters or farmers can be good sources for logs. The logs should be 3″- 6″ in diameter and 40″ long. It’s important not to damage the bark in any way. Store the logs off the ground to keep them from direct contact with dirt; gravel works well. Inoculate the logs as soon as possible after cutting. Downed or felled trees are good uncut for up to two months; cut into logs and soak for 24 hours, a day or two before inoculation.
Drilling
Place the logs on two boards between sawhorses. You will need a drill, bits, and a bit stop. For plug spawn, use a 5/16″ bit set to 1″ depth. For sawdust spawn, use a 7/16″ bit to 3/4″ depth. Starting 2″ from the end of the log, drill 20-30 small holes per log, 6″-8″ apart down its length, and 2″-3″ around the log.
Inoculate the log immediately
After the holes are drilled. With plug spawn, tap a plug into each hole with a hammer until the plug is flush with the bottom of the bark. With sawdust spawn, jab the end of the inoculating tool into the bag of spawn, place the end of the inoculation tool on a hole, and squeeze the handle with the thumb, packing the spawn up to the bottom of the bark. Knock off any excess spawn with your finger.
Waxing
After checking that all the holes in a log are inoculated, dab a thin coat of melted, hot cheese wax over each inoculated site, using either a wax applicator, a dauber, or a sponge cut in half. Do not let the wax get too hot, or the smoke can flash into a fire.
Tagging
Nail an aluminum tag to the end of each log with a single roofing nail. Use a ball-point pen or a color paintstick to write on the tag the date and the strain of mushroom.
Spawn Run
Stack the logs in a shady spot, in the pattern of your water sprinkler, using the lean-to stack method (see drawing). When the leaves are off the trees, the logs can be shaded using 60-80% shade cloth or pine boughs. Living evergreens make an ideal shade cover. The most common cause of failure is dehydrated logs. During the nine-month spawn-run (incubation) soak your logs with a sprinkler or soaker hose, or by immersion, for 12-24 hours about once a week, depending on the weather. It is important to maintain 45-60% log moisture content, but equally important to ALLOW THE BARK TO DRY BETWEEN SOAKINGS to discourage weed fungi. Do infrequent deep soakings rather than frequent light ones. Flipping the logs end over end every few months prevents accumulation of moisture on one end.
Fruiting
The spawn-run requires at least one warm season. Fruiting is near when white splotches of mycelia appear at the ends of the logs. The first harvest may occur naturally, usually after a cool Fall or Spring rain soaks the logs. Thereafter, you may choose to let the logs fruit naturally with a minimum of management (i.e., an occasional deep soaking during hot, dry weather). This yields lots of mushrooms in the Spring and Fall, few or none in the Summer and Winter. The second method is forced fruiting.
Forced Fruiting for Daily Harvests
To simulate Spring and Fall conditions, a log is immersed in clean cool water for 24 hours. Within a few days, mushroom buds (primordia) emerge from the log and attain maturity in 4-6 days. To harvest, cut the stems close to the bark with a sharp knife. Place the mushrooms in a paper bag, store at 34-41ºF for up to a month. After fruiting for 7-10 days, the harvest tapers off. The mushroom mycelium in the logs now needs 6-8 weeks to digest more wood for the next fruiting. In this “Arresting” stage, the logs may be crib-stacked (see figure) in a sheltered place and covered to allow slow drying. It is important to get the moisture right. Too much drying of a log can cause the mycelia to die while rain soaking into resting logs tends to cause smaller harvests and premature fruiting. It can also lead to contamination from the close stacked logs remaining wet.
For Year-round Continuous Harvests
Divide your logs into 5 or 6 numbered stacks, rotate each stack through the soaking tank and fruiting area every 8 weeks. An indoor space or greenhouse kept at about 70ºF allows year-round production. Logs to be fruited in the Winter and Spring should also be rested indoors, since mycelia does not feed as the average temperature drops into the 40¹s. To reduce heating costs, force-fruit the wide-range and cold strains in cold months, the wide-range and warm strains in warm months. On average, each log yields 1/4 lb per fruiting, and 2-4 lb over the lifetime of the log. The best mushroom prices are fetched by high-quality mushrooms and reliable weekly deliveries to restaurants, produce and health-food stores.