Shiitake Mushroom Production on Logs

Introduction

Unlike white button mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms grow on live hardwood substrate. The hardwood can be in the form of logs or sawdust. Shiitake mushrooms prefer species such as oaks, hornbeam, and hard maples but will produce on several other wood species. Hardwood logs about 3 to 6 inches in diameter and 30 to 48 inches in length are inoculated with the fungus in a stage of its life cycle called mycelium. The spawn is placed into the logs 3/8 to 1 inch deep. Each log can grow mushrooms up to 3 years depending on log diameter, hardness of the wood, contamination, and growing environment. The logs must be maintained in an environment above 40 percent moisture and kept fully shaded in the summer. Under natural conditions, shiitake mushrooms fruit in the spring and fall when temperatures are cool.

Seventy-five percent of the forestland in Alabama belongs to small, private owners. Used almost entirely for timber cutting, the land produces about half its potential. Because pines have been removed at a higher rate than hardwood species, the economic use for hardwoods is considered limited. Hardwood sold as firewood brings about $150 per cord while that same cord of wood (about 240 logs), used to grow shiitake mushrooms, could gross $2,000 to $3,000 during the 3 years that mushrooms can be harvested.

Hardwood trees removed from timberland during thinning operations can be used to grow shiitake mushrooms. In addition, when the saw timber is finally harvested, large hardwood limbs are also useful for growing the mushrooms.
Successful shiitake cultivation is not difficult; however, it is hard to control and improve a process that has evolved in nature.

UNP-0025, Catherine Sabota, Extension Horticulturist Alabama A&M University.

For more information, contact your county Extension office. Visit http://www.aces.edu/counties or look in your telephone directory under your county's name to find contact information.

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