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Author Topic: Shiitake Mushrooms  (Read 6635 times)

Offline jalentour

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Shiitake Mushrooms
« on: February 02, 2019, 10:31:33 pm »
As the temperatures go up this week I plan to cut some maple to inoculating with shiitake plugs.  I have limited access to oak so maple will do for this year.  I plan to put the logs in a low shady area near my creek because I will not have time to water them.  Was wondering if anyone has had any luck with shiitake or any other mushrooms?

Offline iddee

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Re: Shiitake Mushrooms
« Reply #1 on: February 03, 2019, 12:21:17 pm »
Tried the plugs one year. Got 1 mushroom on 3 logs.

Tried the mail ordered inoculated logs 2 years. Got a good crop the first year, nothing the second year.

Gave up after that.
"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me . . . Anything can happen, child. Anything can be"

*Shel Silverstein*

Offline gww

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Re: Shiitake Mushrooms
« Reply #2 on: February 03, 2019, 02:37:16 pm »
jva
For about the last month I have been working on growing mushrooms indoors.  My daughter gave me some shiitaki plugs and I have bought some oyster spawn.  I have had no success that produced yet.  All my shiitaki so far keeps getting green mold. 

I cut a couple of oaks down and if I ever get some mushrooms inside, my intention is to make a couple of totems with logs out side.  I am getting good jars of seed colonized but am not far enough into it to actually produce a mushroom.  I am doing 5 lbs bags of wood pellets and I am going to take short logs and put some mycelium between the ends of the logs and then set them somewhere in a plastic bag for a while till the mycelium grows the logs together.

Inside, I am getting lots of contamination but think that outside that is not as much of a problem but I have never did it yet.
I think memeber SiWolke did some last year and got a few mushrooms this year.

Good luck
gww

Offline SiWolKe

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Re: Shiitake Mushrooms
« Reply #3 on: February 04, 2019, 03:33:37 pm »
Yes my first try was to plug freshly harvested beech trunks.
I made some slits with a chain saw before drowning the trunk pieces  for two days in a container and plugged in the mycel. Stuffed with plastic foil.
I kept the trunks wet and in the shade.
After one year i stood them on the ground in my garden, still in shade ( idea was to lure the mycel into the ground)
After two years the mushrooms developed the fruit bodies.
After two days the snails started to eat them.

I belive I might harvest this year. I have to find a way to keep off the snails, maybe I place the trunks in the chicken area.
I don?t know about chicken eating mushrooms though.

Plus, I will try again with a oat hay bale. I tried once. Had many mushrooms but not the one I plugged in. That was because the bale had contact with the ground.
The feral spores were everywhere and I had no knowledge of the species, so no harvest.
Now I will hang the bales in a tree.

Shiitake, they are the best. i would hang a net with substrate in a tree, vaccinate, keep wet. This I will try too but I have to see whether I get spores. Not easy here.






Offline beepro

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Re: Shiitake Mushrooms
« Reply #4 on: February 05, 2019, 09:54:53 am »
We have all kind of molds growing here mainly inside my house, dormant everywhere.   I've seen black white green orange blue yellow grey and
everything in between growing inside my spawns.  I've learned a lot about shiitake and oyster growing on this forum shroomery.org one summer at the
same time I pick up beekeeping.   Now I'm just perfecting my techniques on maximizing my production output.   

https://tinyurl.com/yald2ju2    Polar oyster mushroom mycelium growing now.  I started with plugs obtained online.  Then planted these plugs into rye
berry inside the 1/2 pint jars.  These are the small jars so that the mycelium will colonize a lot faster and within 2 weeks they have completely over taken
the rye jars.   It is now ready to inoculate more jars or to be use on the cut down woods.  For the woods, I have mulberry, jujubee, plum, etc. almost anything
I can find locally that other people cut down.   During the early Spring is when they cut down the most trees here.  I get free woods for my mushrooms if they don't want to dispose off themselves.   

For this batch of rye jars without any contamination, I will use them to expand my culture more into bigger half gallon size rye jars.   Just like the bee hives it is
better to raise them off the ground for the colonization process to be completed.  That way other foreign myceliums cannot get into the same woods you are trying to colonize otherwise it will contaminate your entire culture.  On youtube vids they use the high speed drill to make the holes for the plugs to colonize the woods.  It is another interesting subject to explore further.  Find out what works in your local area and never give up until you've find a way to do it.   In glass jar culture, I have seen 2 small shiitake mushroom hugging each other while still growing inside a quart size jar on agar medium.  When I took pics of them the color was a bluish tint almost like a snowy winter wonderland inside the jar.      Now is the time to inoculate the woods in my backyard with the polar oyster that I've collected over last summer.   It is still raining season right now.    I would suggest that you first learn about the growing process by making and refining your growing technique inside your house before setting them outside to grow.   During the entire process you will learn a lot too.

Offline gww

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Re: Shiitake Mushrooms
« Reply #5 on: February 05, 2019, 11:24:12 am »
bee pro
It is fairly easy to get them started, just harder to get them to fruit with out some kind of contamination showing its ugly head.

I am using bird seed instead of rye.

I am trying to clean up some mycelium on ager cause I keep getting penicillin on the shiitaki.
I have about six 5 lbs bulk bags of shiitaki, king and pheonix oyster going and am about two weeks in on them.

It is all fun if you have a little time to play with.
Cheers
gww

Offline SiWolKe

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Re: Shiitake Mushrooms
« Reply #6 on: February 05, 2019, 03:07:51 pm »
Bee pro, that gives me some ideas, thank you.

gww, good luck! Update, please!

Offline delunkang

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Re: Shiitake Mushrooms
« Reply #7 on: July 31, 2019, 12:14:04 am »
Yes, I do have my own mushroom business and I?m successful. It is not that hard to grow shiitake mushroom. 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. Their website is http://www.agrinoon.com/agriculture/ . They too helped me out to grow one more mushroom type and that is Oyster mushroom log 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.

Offline jalentour

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Re: Shiitake Mushrooms
« Reply #8 on: August 16, 2019, 12:45:55 am »
I've spoken to several restaurant owners who want a steady supply of mushrooms in my area.  Seems like a opportunity hard to pass up.  Looking into larger production.

Offline ClaireChurchilly

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Re: Shiitake Mushrooms
« Reply #9 on: March 27, 2021, 04:05:54 pm »
Awesome post. Too bad I'm too late to jump in the conversation. I was thinking of adding some shitake mushroom clogs around the yard where I keep my bees. We love collecting them from the forest, but with my wife's recent leg injury it will be harder from now on to stroll in the forest like we've been doing all these years. I have actually looked into getting her some medicinal mushrooms from the land down under as a remedy and an attempt to help her heal faster. If you think it's a good idea please let me know or if you have tried similar products before.

Offline BeeMaster2

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Re: Shiitake Mushrooms
« Reply #10 on: March 31, 2021, 06:53:59 am »
Claire,
Welcome to Beemaster. There are several threads about the value of mushrooms here on BeeMaster.
Jim Altmiller
Democracy is 2 wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.
Ben Franklin