How to Grow Mushrooms on Logs | Complete Inoculation Walkthrough!

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so we're here at Winslow farm just to take a little stroll gonna find some trees that are suitable for log inoculation [Music] hi everyone I'm John from Norse for mushrooms I'm one of the co-founders and the head mycologist we're out here in the main woods it's about mid-march you find a log to grow shiitake on this has always been the traditional time for felling a tree and cutting logs and the reason is this time of year tree species retain all of the sugars and energy they've accumulated during the summer months into the wood right so when we're cutting the tree down now it's got the highest energy potential now that being said as growers have continued to experiment with log cultivation we've also found out that you can cut down a tree pretty much anywhere from midsummer into late fall and there's different techniques depending on the time of year you cut the tree but today we're going to be focusing on this sort of midwinter inoculation and what's involved with that process we're here we finally found the tree that we're gonna use today we've got a nice oak and this is the tree we selected again because we're cultivating shitake mushrooms so this oak is the perfect diameter right we're looking for a tree that's anywhere from four to six inches in diameter and then we can see that because this sort of starts around that diameter we're gonna get a lot of usable log lengths out of that when thinking about cutting down trees we usually try to get people to think about the sustainability of woodlot management right so we could theoretically cut down that one right there this is a better log it's a smaller diameter it will help this tree grow larger and then repopulate the stand that we have here we also have our tractor here and this is going to help us once we cut up our logs to haul them out of the woods and then bring them to a warmer location where we can do the inoculation [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] we're back here and we've brought our logs into this greenhouse which considering it's mid-march this makes a little bit warmer as a workspace so if you happen to have a greenhouse on your property this works really well workshops anything like that it's also really nice to have power because then you can use things like this crock pot here which we have for melting our wax that we're going to take this log we've cut and we're going to inoculate it with shiitake mushroom spawn the spawn we're using today is sawdust spawn so this is just the mushroom mycelium that we've grown on sawdust and we're gonna be drilling holes throughout the log filling those holes of sawdust and then sealing them with wax and that's basically the process and I'm just going to go through that process show you how it's done and show you some of the tools that we use to accomplish that the first step of the process is actually drilling the holes in the log you can use a hand drill for this but it makes the drilling part probably the slowest part of the process so what we really recommend especially if you're doing more than say like five logs is to actually upgrade and get an angle grinder adapter that allows you to use a mushroom drill bit with an angle grinder versus a hand drill so that's what this is here this is our angle grinder adapter and then what we also use is a specialized drill bit and this drill bit is basically the right size that you need for sawdust spawn it also has a stopper on it that goes to the right depth and the log and it's designed to shoot out the chips clearing the hole it will use these two pieces in conjunction on an angle grinder and this is the angle grinder with that all installed that set up so we've got the adapter and then the 12 millimeter bit that goes on here in this bit is specifically designed to work with this inoculation tool and so this tool is what allows us to get the sawdust from the bag into the hole it's set up so that it fits with that 12 millimeter size of the drill bit in order to drill this log we're going to be using this angle grinder with the tools that I mentioned so the adapter and the 12 millimeter bit because the spins at such a high rpm it makes the process a lot faster so I'll demonstrate that now you can see that went pretty quickly and what you want to do with that whole spacing is you want each hole to be about four to six inches apart and then you do a row down the entire length of the log once you've gotten that first row completed you'll just turn the log and then do a second row staggered relative to the first in that distance between rows is about 2 to 3 inches and then you're going to be basically putting those holes in a diamond pattern so I'll do that second row now and just kind of continue around the log [Applause] so now that we've drilled holes throughout the entire circumference of the log we're gonna fill those holes with sawdust spawn and so today we're using shiitake but this procedure is pretty much the same regardless of the mushroom species that you're using all right easy access so we're going to be using this inoculation tool and pretty much how this works is you just jam this into the sawdust a few times it loads the end of this tool and then it injects it into the holes so see that's pretty good it's pretty flush and then we'll just go around and do that to all the holes [Music] [Music] [Music] the last stage of the process is just sealing those holes with wax so one thing that we found that's really good for keeping wax heated is this crock pot here this just you set it at low gets it heated and then keeps it at that temperature for as long as you're doing your project we just use these little wax dobbers get them saturated and then put a little bit of wax on top of each hole here [Music] and you pretty much just go like this around the entire circumference of the log [Music] so now that we've gotten each hole sealed with wax the last stage of the process is just sealing the ends of the logs with wax now strictly speaking this isn't necessary if you live in a really damp climate like we do here in New England but what that does it just helps retain moisture in the log so this is especially useful if you live in a really dry climate or expect to have dry summers but the other thing that it does and the reason that we typically do it is it allows the mycelium to colonize the log all the way to the end of the log and it allows us to see the mycelium that way so we can kind of check on the logs make sure they're colonizing well so that's the main advantage to waxing the ends that we like to see but especially useful if you're in a drier climate the best way we found to do this you could just use a paintbrush to paint on the wax but we just like to lift up the log and dip it into the crockpot so here we are at Winslow farms shiitake logs okay ssin you can see they have all these logs stacked here for fruiting in many ways this is an ideal location we've got a lot of evergreen trees with pretty low branches which helps keep it shady keep it cool during the summer months it's hard to see it this time of year but there's actually a pond right beyond the logs here and that way whenever there's a dry spell they can just throw the logs into the pond get them hydrating or if they want to force fruit the logs they can throw the logs into the pond and get a rotational fruiting schedule that way one thing that I'll talk about while we're here is how to stack logs and how you should manage your logs once you have them and they're fully colonized once you create your first mushroom log you actually don't want to stack them like this so this is a setup for fruiting the mushrooms what you want to do is you want to keep those blogs very close to the ground so you'd lay out some pallet wood put the logs close to the ground and that way that keeps them humid that's the most humid part of the forest is right by the forest floor when we do get winter and we get a snowfall that snow actually covers the log and keeps them protected one of the biggest things that's going to cause problems with your shiitake logs is that they'll dry out especially in winter when the air is super dry so if they're exposed like these ones are there gonna be more prone to drying out during the winter months and so these look like there's some actually freshly inoculated logs over here so this is more what you want to do you want to keep them low to the ground this is actually nice because you can see they're starting to colonize all this white on the ends of the logs is actually the mushroom mycelium so this is a pretty good setup here if you are sort of intensively managing your logs you would also right before the winter you would want to take those stacks down and put them low to the ground so that they don't dry out obviously there's a lot more labour in that right so which is probably why these have just been left here in terms of stacking the logs during the summer months this is actually a really ideal setup right the reason that this is a good setup is that it allows for air flow around the log so therefore one it's easy to pick the mushrooms once they fruit and that air flow encourages fruiting all around the wall so a lot of times people will keep their logs low to the ground during the winter and then stack them up like this dream for fruiting season during the summer [Music]

Channel: North Spore

Views: 378,632

Keywords: mushrooms, edible, fungi, growing, cultivation, homesteading, spawn, foraging, wild foods, oyster, shiitake, grow, cultivate, north, spore, spores, laboratory, log, logs, farm, farming, outdoor, inoculation, how, angle, angle grinder adapter, tool, plug, sawdust, greenhouse, 4k, highdef, sustainable, shitake, demo, demonstration, walkthrough, tree, selection, choosing

Id: eDmm52FXfZ4

Length: 13min 0sec (780 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 12 2019

Reddit Comments

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[u/ChloePantalones]

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