"Everybody should have a home mushroom garden," according to Joe Krawczyk. And he's ready and able to help.
Joe and his wife, Mary Ellen Kozak, have become acknowledged authorities in the arcane art and science of mushroom culture since their start in 1983. They specialize in exotic varieties such as stropharia, maitake and reishi, but shiitake is clearly their favorite. They have traveled throughout the US and the world, learning about and teaching mushroom culture.
Joe and his wife, Mary Ellen Kozak, have become acknowledged authorities in the arcane art and science of mushroom culture since their start in 1983. They specialize in exotic varieties such as stropharia, maitake and reishi, but shiitake is clearly their favorite. They have traveled throughout the US and the world, learning about and teaching mushroom culture.
Their fascination with fungi has led to a thriving home business: Field & Forest Products, Inc., located on the farm Mary Ellen's grandparents settled in 1910 in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, a short distance north of Green Bay. They produce mushrooms for restaurants in Milwaukee and elsewhere, and also provide information and supplies for other growers-both commercial, and the homestead variety with that "mushroom garden." The latter includes easy-to-use kits, some of which are sold through seed catalogs. They produce the spawn they sell, which is a highly specialized and technical operation in itself. Field & Forest has organic certification.
Maybe a rose is a rose is a rose, but a mushroom is not a mushroom, and certainly not a toadstool! The very informative, interesting and attractive Field & Forest catalog discusses shiitake, Lentinula edodes, Pleurotus spp., Grifola frondosa, Ganoderma lucidum-with many varieties and strains for different climates, seasons of fruiting, natural or forced fruiting, and more. Clearly, growing mushrooms isn't as simple as planting radishes or lettuce, but Joe and Mary Ellen make it seem almost as easy.
One of their educational efforts is an annual one-day workshop held in Peshtigo each April, co-sponsored by the Shiitake Grower's Association of Wisconsin. This year about 50 people from as far away as Texas gathered on a chilly, rainy Saturday that was warmed and brightened by a fast-paced, fact-filled, hands-on look at specialty mushroom culture. One of the highlights was a luncheon featuring cream of shiitake soup, lion's mane and baby shiitake kebabs, crispy oyster mushroom, and "toadstool oat sugar cookies" in the shape of-what else?-mushrooms!
The morning slide lecture started off with an account of some of their travels. There were pictures of mountains of mushrooms in a market in a Chinese village that produces more shiitakes in a week than the US produces in an entire year. . . and where 25% of the local diet is reportedly mushrooms. In Russia, there was a PhD with an income of $30 a month due to that country's economic troubles, who grows oyster mushrooms for extra income. In Macedonia they visited shiitake growers, and pictures from Alabama showed mushroom logs in laying yards in the deep shade of piney woods.
Terminology
Mushrooms are the reproductive structure of the fungus, or "fruit bodies," similar to the function of the flower in green plants. Unlike green plants, fungi cannot manufacture their own food. Those nutrients come from an extensive network of threadlike filaments (mycelium) which convert organic materials (substrates) into compounds the fungi can utilize.
Specialty mushrooms refers to any mushroom other than the common button variety, agaricus. Specialty mushrooms are less widely available, and more expensive than the mass-produced agaricus-which, in Joe's opinion, taste like cardboard by comparison.
Mushrooms do not grow from spores, Joe emphasized. Spores, which are shed from the mushroom cap much like pollen from a flower, are not genetically complete. They must mate with another spore. The genetically complete mycelial tissue of a fungus that will propagate mushrooms is called spawn.
It requires a specialized laboratory, equipment and knowledge, to produce spawn. This is what Field & Forest produces and sells in a variety of forms.
The substrate (the organic materials that feed the mushroom) is inoculated with spawn of the desired variety. This is a process of mixing, akin to planting.
The choice of substrate depends on the type of mushroom to be grown, as well as personal choice and experience. But as one example of the complexity (and one reason why it's so much easier and cheaper for the homestead-type mushroom gardener to buy ready-to-use spawn), here's a recipe for a substrate used for shiitake: 45 lbs. of white millet, 11-1/2 lbs. bran, 1 liter dry molasses, 8 lbs. rye grain, and 24ml calcium sulphate.
This, and other substrates, are sterilized with steam in an autoclave at 15 pounds per square inch.
Growing mushrooms
Many substrates are based on sawdust, and some mushrooms are grown on this "waste" product. Some mushrooms are grown in straw. But note that these specialty mushrooms don't use the horse manure and straw compost most people commonly associate with mushrooms. That mix-and the cave-like growing environment-are for agaricus. This common white mushroom digests compost. The specialty mushrooms are wood-decaying fungi, which are naturally adapted to an outdoor, forested environment.
Shiitake, the focus of this workshop, are commonly grown on logs. Both China and Japan claim to have first developed this technique, but in the US it was unknown, and quite difficult, until only recently.
In fact, Joe showed one slide of some shiitake logs, which he used in a presentation at an international seminar in the 1980s. He attended the seminar at the request of the USDA, as one of the American "experts" in shiitake cultivation on natural logs.
The real experts, from China and Japan, were astounded. "We'd consider that a crop failure," one said. Another: "Those mushrooms aren't fit for soup." Joe, devastated, said "I was ready to go home."
But he learned from those experts and, as indicated, is now in their class.
After those years of experimentation and experience, the process is now clearly defined, and quite simple.
The logs are cut during the dormant season-between the time the leaves have reached 50% color in the fall and just before the buds swell in spring. The ideal moisture content of the log is 40%. Cutting the logs just before inoculation helps to maintain this moisture content, and also decreases the risk of competing organisms getting into the logs.
Preferred log size is 3-8 inches in diameter and 36-40 inches long. The primary consideration is weight. These will be handled as many as eight times, and if you have any quantity-or are getting older-125-pound logs aren't very attractive, Joe warns.
Joe and Mary Ellen recommend oak, especially red oak, for shiitake production. Hard maple is also good. Avoid soft hardwoods such as willow, and don't use conifers because shiitake grows poorly on these.
The trees must be living and healthy when cut, but practice good forest management: Don't harvest trees that are valuable as sawlogs. Instead, select cull trees that should be removed anyway in timber stand improvement (TSI). Branches of suitable size and conformation, left from a timber harvest, are acceptable.
Inoculation
Inoculation is done as early in spring as possible-as soon as it's comfortable to work outside, Joe says. Freezing won't damage the spawn, but daytime temperatures should be above 40º.
The first step is drilling holes-about 48 of them in the typical log. With dowel spawn (pieces of wood dowel impregnated with spawn) use a 5/16-inch bit, with sawdust spawn, a 7/16-inch one, about an inch deep. (Special collars that fit on the bits are available to control the depth.)
Holes are drilled along the length of the log at 6-8-inch intervals. The second row, at the same spacing, is drilled parallel, about two inches away, from the first, but between the first holes, creating a diamond pattern.
Repeat this pattern around the log. The typical log will have about 48 holes.
There's a reason for this spacing and pattern. The mycilia grow best along the grain of the wood, not across it. Therefore the lateral spacing can be less than the longitudinal spacing. The recommended distances will offer the highest production.
For the backyarder, dowel spawn is easier and faster to use. A dowel is simply tapped into each hole until it's flush with the log surface. Although sawdust spawn can be worked into each hole with clean fingers, this is much more easily done with an inoculation tool. The tool is plunged into a container of spawn several times until it's loaded. Then the spawn is ejected into the hole by depressing a plunger with a button on the end of the tool.
Sawdust spawn is cheaper than dowel spawn, but an inoculation tool costs about $30. (For large operations, a pneumatic model costs $425.) We found the dowel to be more suitable for homestead use.
When all the holes are filled, they must be covered with wax so the spawn doesn't dry out. Joe recommends cheese wax, rather than paraffin, because it's less brittle and less likely to crack during repeated handling of the logs.
This is applied at about 400º with a cotton dauber, a ball of cotton on a short wire handle. Caution: The flash point of wax is 450º. Overheating the wax can be extremely dangerous!
The final step is labeling the logs. Aluminum tags are marked with the strain used, date, and any other information you require, and stapled to one end of each log.
Laying the logs
The most critical factor in shiitake production is the moisture content of the log. The logs absolutely must not be allowed to dry below 30% moisture content (MC). For this reason, the "laying yard" should be in a shady place, with summer temperatures of 60-80º and relative humidity of 80-85%. If necessary, soak or thoroughly water the logs to maintain at least 30% MC, and preferably above 35%.
Don't just sprinkle the logs every day or so with a watering can or hose. That merely dampens the surface. Wet them down good with a lawn sprinkler for several hours, once a week.
Some larger operations soak batches of logs in cold water, using stock tanks, or concrete septic tanks (new and unused, of course), using tractors to move the logs.
Fruiting
"Expect to see your first mushrooms sporadically late in the season of the inoculation year," Joe and Mary Ellen advise. "Look for them again during the growing season following the first anniversary of the inoculation. Depending on log diameter and other variables you can expect fruiting for an additional 2-6 years."
Shiitake will cease to fruit after most of the log is decayed, typically 3-6 years.
Grow mushrooms even in an apartment with a "teepee" log
When Joe and Mary Ellen say anyone can grow mushrooms, they aren't kidding. The homesteader might have a couple of dozen logs in a few square yards of shaded area, but even a suburbanite can grow mushrooms unobtrusively, perhaps behind a garage or shed. Logs along a building's dripline will be watered automatically by rain.
But literally everyone, including apartment dwellers, can grow mushrooms with the unique "Teepee Oyster Roll" kit. This provides a good learning experience, the small "logs" make unusual gifts, and the mushrooms will grow in a kitchen cupboard or other normal household space.
The kit consists of a bag of oyster mushroom grain spawn, plastic bags fitted with special filters, rubber bands, and instructions. You supply-a roll of toilet paper! (Actually, there are 7-roll kits and 15-roll kits.) Here's how it works:
Place a roll of plain (unscented, unprinted, uncolored) toiler paper on a clean surface that will drain: a rack, colander, drainboard or such. Pour boiling water over it until it's saturated. Let drain and cool until the center of the roll is comfortable to the touch. Place in the filter bag. Fill the cardboard core of the roll with spawn. Close the bag and secure with a rubber band. Place it in a darkened area (like a cupboard) at a temperature of, ideally, 65-75º.
"In 2-3 weeks the roll should be completely colonized with the white, fluffy mycellium of the oyster mushroom," according to the directions. "Occasionally you will see a small green patch of a contaminating fungus as well," meaning that even mushroom gardeners have to contend with "weeds." However, this is usually okay if it remains small. Thoroughly soaking with boiling water, and working with clean hands, will help minimize such problems.
Then place the bagged, incubated roll in the refrigerator for 48 hours to produce a "cold shock" that stimulates fruiting. Do not freeze, or the spawn will die. (Now we understand why we find wild pleurotus, oyster mushrooms, only under certain conditions in the fall.)
Remove the bagged roll from the refrigerator and place it in a well-lit area at room temperature. Remove the rubber band and fluff the bag open to increase air flow and induce fruiting.
The "first flush" of mushrooms should appear in a week or two. Harvest by grasping the stem and twisting, or slice them off close to the roll.
After harvesting, close up the bag again, put it back in the darkened cupboard, and repeat the process. When the roll is exhausted, toss it on the compost pile.
A home business
As with any business, you should start small, and learn the ropes, before committing large amounts of time and money. Even from this brief report it should be obvious that there's plenty to learn, just about culture, to say nothing of marketing and other business management concerns.
On the other hand, while many businesses can be started on a shoestring, how many can be started on a roll of toilet paper!
Whether you're fascinated by fungi, gung-ho for gardening, looking for a home business or simply enjoy good eating, mushroom culture is worth looking into.
