Anyone here grow their own mushrooms?

If so tell us about it.

I'm getting ready to do some work for a guy who just bought a house with lots of wooded acres and he is selling the trees. Which means there will be a lot of tree tops that I could go and collect from to raise Oyster or ----ake mushrooms from. Really thinking of the Oysters as they grow wild around here and am thinking maybe I could learn how to collect the spores from them and somehow innoculate the limbs I cut. Has anyone done this or do you always buy the plugs?

Oh my! :1pig:

[calliemoonbeam]

Moonwolf knows lots about wild mushrooms and has been growing some pine boletes (?) under trees he planted. You might ask him. He mostly posts on Singletree. HTH

Originally Posted by r.h. in okla.

If so tell us about it.

I'm getting ready to do some work for a guy who just bought a house with lots of wooded acres and he is selling the trees. Which means there will be a lot of tree tops that I could go and collect from to raise Oyster or ----ake mushrooms from. Really thinking of the Oysters as they grow wild around here and am thinking maybe I could learn how to collect the spores from them and somehow innoculate the limbs I cut. Has anyone done this or do you always buy the plugs?

I used to grow quite a few from plugs. I studied up on growing from spores and even tried it a little, but it requires a really sterile environment. I followed directions pretty close and made a box into which only your arms went to handle the spores. You had to innoculate the spores on petri dishes to get them growing, but careful as I was, I had all sorts of fungal stuff growing. It's amazing the amount of spores and other things floating in the air. It is interesting, but not worth it to me. The plugs are much easier.

[chickenista]

I bought one of those shroom boxes last year and loved it. When we get more settled in I am going to grow on a larger scale. Delicious. Fresh ones bear no resemblance to those poor little things you can buy in the store.

[tallpines]

Did you mean to say S*H*I*T*A*K*E mushrooms?

The HT board just dosn't like those first four letters of that word!

We tried innoculating logs with the plugs.
Got some mushrooms but more often forgot to check on the logs often enough and the mushrooms would be past their prime.

[Hillbillybob]

Here is where I buy plugs and span from. Best people that I have found to work with.

http://www.fungi.com/plugs/index.html

Hillbillybob

[moonwolf]

I can't help with growing cultivated mushrooms. It's not my interest commercially at all, though I take advantage of nature's wild grown one's that I forage. There's also weather dependence on growing mushrooms and personally, I'd rather use time growing garden stuff on the immediate homestead and look for the wild grown oyster mushrooms, morels, and others as they come into season.
I've been playing around with a Scot's pine plantation and Pine Bolete's over the past couple years just observing and seeing the best ways those would grow together as a permaculture or agroforestry type of idea.

[YounGrey]

I know you can also buy kits and grow inside.

[belladulcinea]

There are commercial growers in Oklahoma that are close to me and their mushrooms are so much better than the other guys like Green Giant. But I would love grow my own too.

[chicky momma]

A friend of mine grows them on logs in his backyard. He bought plugs I think and inoculated the logs. He grows s-takes and oysters, several kinds. Fabulous! He grows them I sell them for him at the market. They are dependant on the weather but still pretty regular growth this year. Lisa

[brownthumb]

I tried and FAILED to grow ----take, morel and chicken of the woods. Followed everything in the instructions. No luck. Funny thing is that the poisonous and inedible ones naturally sprout here all the time but I couldn't get any good ones to grow.

Originally Posted by brownthumb

I tried and FAILED to grow ----take, morel and chicken of the woods. Followed everything in the instructions. No luck. Funny thing is that the poisonous and inedible ones naturally sprout here all the time but I couldn't get any good ones to grow.

I suppose a few people have success with morels, but I never heard of one. They are the hardest to grow. Learn to grow them commercially and you will be a millionaire. Oysters and ---takes are easy to grow unless you have too much competition from native fungi. I kept 36 ----take logs and always had about 5 or 6 that wouldn't produce because some other fungus got in the logs. Oysters produced well set in the woods in a low spot, but they grow wild here and weren't worth the trouble. I used the stacking method for those rather than plugs.

[Mike in Ohio]

DW and I just placed 2 hundred s--take plugs in white oak logs. Ask us next year about the outcome <G>.

Mike

Thanks for the post, comments and websites everyone. Oyster, chicken of the woods, and corrals I can find growing wild but I couldn't find enough to market them. That is why I'm wanting to grow them. Just something to make a little more money in my future veggie stand.

Something I haven't tried yet is that a man once told me that when you find some morel mushrooms, soak them in cold water for a while. The spores will fall out in the water and then you can go spray the water where you think would be a good place for them to come up next year. I was going to try that this last spring but we got hit with a killing freeze that took out most everything that was growing. I never did find any morels.

But anyway, if that works for morels, then maybe it would also work for oyster mushrooms as well. I could spray some logs with the spore water and hopefully next year I will have something to harvest.

Gonna try and see what happens.

[james dilley]

Interesting Question, I would LOVE to use the Mesquite forest on my place for that. Theres A 1/4 acre of Mesquite trees I would really like to try to raise the Mushrooms. I just sent Away for A catalog from Fungi perfecti? I can Cull enough mesquite to get the logs needed if they would work?

Originally Posted by Mike in Ohio

DW and I just placed 2 hundred s--take plugs in white oak logs. Ask us next year about the outcome <G>.

Mike

Good luck Mike. They should do fine as long as they are in full shade. I have a small grove of trees by my barn that is sort of low and collects rain water. I nailed 2x4's between the trees and stood my logs on end and leaned them against the 2x4's. The first year after I innoculated them they produced very heavy, the second year was about half and the logs were eaten up by the third year. When they fruit, check them every day and pick them while the edges of the shrooms are still turned down. Once the tops become flat, they are past their prime and it can happen overnight. Enjoy.

Originally Posted by james dilley

Interesting Question, I would LOVE to use the Mesquite forest on my place for that. Theres A 1/4 acre of Mesquite trees I would really like to try to raise the Mushrooms. I just sent Away for A catalog from Fungi perfecti? I can Cull enough mesquite to get the logs needed if they would work?

James, I would call Fungi Perfecti and ask about mesquite. They are pros and who I dealt with. We don't have mesquite here so I know nothing about it. Is it a hard wood?

Originally Posted by r.h. in okla.

Thanks for the post, comments and websites everyone. Oyster, chicken of the woods, and corrals I can find growing wild but I couldn't find enough to market them. That is why I'm wanting to grow them. Just something to make a little more money in my future veggie stand.

Something I haven't tried yet is that a man once told me that when you find some morel mushrooms, soak them in cold water for a while. The spores will fall out in the water and then you can go spray the water where you think would be a good place for them to come up next year. I was going to try that this last spring but we got hit with a killing freeze that took out most everything that was growing. I never did find any morels.

But anyway, if that works for morels, then maybe it would also work for oyster mushrooms as well. I could spray some logs with the spore water and hopefully next year I will have something to harvest.

Gonna try and see what happens.

I know a guy who started black morels under a pine grove by throwing his soak water out there. Or it may have been a coincidense. I have tried it for years at various locations in my woods with no results yet. You can also collect spores by placing a shroom, gill side down, on a piece of typing paper, sprinkling a FEW drops of water on top of the shroom, and cover it with an inverted glass to prevent air flow. In a few hours, remove the glass and carefully pick up the shroom. You will have spores in the exact shape of the shroom. Spread them where you choose. Spore prints like this are used to identify some mushrooms because they have their own color.

[james dilley]

Mesquite is A very Hard wood Just like Black Locust is up north.