Tree Service or Individual - The Chattanooga Mushroom Club Needs Your Logs!
Hi,
The Chattanooga Mushroom Club started this spring. We are a group who works to teach our community about the mushrooms that grow in our area through in-person meetups that feature mushroom experts and fun activities such as mushroom growing workshops, foraging trips and mushroom themed dinners.
The fall and winter are the perfect time to think about mushroom growing since this is the time when it is optimal to inoculate hardwood logs with mushroom spawn. The trees must be heading into dormancy (with 50% leaf color change) or totally dormant...so that time should be starting in a few weeks by my estimation.
The ideal logs are 4" - 8" in diameter and 36" - 48" long and straight with no limbs.
The species needed are (in rough order of desirability):
- Oak (by far the most desirable/versatile for mushroom cultivation)
- Sugar Maple (Hard)
- Beech
- Sweet Gum
- Alder
- Tulip Poplar
- Hackberry/Mulberry
The process for inoculating logs goes like this:
We use a specialized drill bit on a high speed grinder to drill a grid of holes into the logs
Next we use an inoculation tool to put a plug of mycelium inoculated sawdust spawn into the holes. The bit mentioned above and the thumb inoculator are designed together so just the right amount goes in.
We then seal the holes with melted cheese wax. We use a cotton dauber to put it on the holes. This process keeps the log from losing internal moisture from the holes, since mushrooms are mostly water we don't want the logs drying out.
Finally we tag the logs so that we know what mushroom species is growing and when it was inoculated.
From here we let the mycelium do it's thing. It's job is to break down the lignan in the wood by eating it. The white ropey-cobweb looking material called mycelium is actually the fungus, it will grow throughout the whole log. The mushrooms that pop out eventually given the right conditions are the fruiting bodies...they are sort of like apples to an apple tree. Picking them does the mycelium no harm in the same way that picking an apple does not hurt the tree. The logs are placed in a shaded spot low to the ground so that they are protected from harsh wind which can dry them out. Then eventually if they are kept watered and sheltered they will start to produce. Some species will produce for up to 8 years.
Tree Service - Mushroom Club Partnership
We would love to establish relationships with local tree services where we could receive logs like I outlined above - occasionally we can use even larger logs up to 10"-12" but they have to be shorter and they use a different cultivation technique - we would endeavor to work out a method to get the logs from you that doesn't mess up your workflow and we are open to idea in this regard.
Once we get the logs we will inoculate them and for every dozen logs that we receive from you, we will give you back a fully inoculated log for your own use. If properly cared for these will produce pounds and pounds of mushrooms over many years.
***For Every Twelve Logs You Give to the Club- You Get One Fully Inoculated Mushroom Log***
We are open to other arrangements and we would love to have an ongoing relationship with your company. In fact, for those of you interested we would like for you to join and talk, maybe even give talks at meetings about mushrooms you've seen in the field or other topics.
To check out the club, click here to see our latest and past newsletters, and subscribe to see upcoming events.
Thanks for your interest in the Chattanooga Mushroom Club - and for giving back to your community!
Posted Nov 1, 2023, 3:55 PM UTC