mushroom experts?

[Tree Machine]

Morels

Oak leaves. The old timers say when the oak leaves are as big as a mouse's ear. Year after year I have found that to be true. I also write the date of the first find and compare it year to year. It rarely varies more than three days either side of the projected date, which for me in Indianapolis Indiana is April 17 for the black morels, 10 days later for the whites.

In total agreement with JP on looking for them at the base of elms, especially dead elms. However, they pop up wherever they darn well please.

Here's some growing up out of gravel at the edge of someone's driveway. -TM-

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

Is there a good way to innoculate soil with morel?

 

[Tree Machine]

Yes, yes there is

Hmmmm, that was a pet project of mine back in '96, '97 and '98. I'm still considering releasing that in some form some day.

It involves making a big bonfire, and extinguishing it before everything turns completely to ash. A few days later, when the site is back to normal earth temperature, the site is spawned. Then it helps to cast elm chips all over the site. I had success with and without the chipping. It wasn't until 98 that I got a chipper. With the white morels I would use a blend of elm and apple chips.

Getting quality spawn is really kinda difficult. The handling of it is critical as it's very sensitive and can contaminate with even the mildest of bruising.

This is a very truncated version. -TM-

 

[TreeJunkie]

I'd love to hear more about ways and methods of innoculating for morels and ????akes< Tm you seem to be more than knowledgeable in the area of fungi,,,please tell me what i need to do to get some of these tasty fruits before the right time of the year has passed...Thanks

 

[Tree Machine]

tasty morsels

Uhhhh, that would be shiitakes. If you put ???? in a word, you'll get a bunch of question marks. Shiitakes are my third favorite mushroom. I used to grow some whoppers, big as portabellas. Lemme see if I can dig up the picture of my wife with a nice shiitake block. Shiitakes are great inoculated into oak stumps. I may be able to find that photo too.

As far as finding morels, get your butt out of the trees and tramp around the woods. Hope for good amounts of regular rain from about the time the magnolias start flowering, until the oak leaves are half the size of your hand. look for dead elms in the forest and think like a mushroom. -TM-

 

[TreeJunkie]

WHOa! that's really an impressive cultivation. I'll be looking really soon, pretty dry this week so far though. How many days of solid moisture is really needed to get some shrooms. How do you go about inoculating an oak log or stump..in order to get shiitakes? Can you grow morels in the same manner?

 

[Tree Machine]

Growing mushrooms

Morel cultivation is not like any other specie I know of. First off, you spawn your area (which can be expensive and take many days of preparation and execution) and they will still come up the following year only when the other ones do.... which is about a 10 day window in the Spring....maybe. it's very hit or miss, and there is no guarantee. Probably better off to wander the woods. It's very peaceful, even if you don't find anything.

Shiitakes can be gotten at about any supermarket, year 'round, but if you're bent on inoculating some logs or stumps, buy a kit, either from mushroompeople, or Fungi Perfecti. In the previous stump photo, if you look again closely at the bark of the stump, you'll see that I've driven in fungus-impregnated wooden dowel pins, and dobbed over them with a little wax. Also, the top of the stump is sealed with wax to hold in the moisture.

In this upcoming image, I had purchased a bag of shiitake spawn about this time last year. I was going to inoculate a 1,000 lb silver maple log (as an experiment) with the help of a Woodmizer bandmill, but the mill operator couldn't get there that week, and by the time he showed up, my spawn block had fruited. That happens sometimes -TM-

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

I've seen some documentaries where the Japanese will prop oak logs up in a shady area and drill holes for the dowels. I thin you could finde a few pieces of oak somewhere Brandon.

Shiitakes are great inoculated into oak stumps

I've read that oak is best, is there any differance in flavor when using either the white or red subgenus?

 

[TreeJunkie]

The wood aspect isn't a problem,,,I need the mushroom growing for dummies guide....and of coarse i'd need to get the spores to start. Can somebody point me in the right direction?

 

[Tree Machine]

http://www.mushroompeople.com these guys are the long-standing pro's who specialize in Shiitake. They have a drill there - actually n angle grinder, fitted with a drill chuck- an 11,000 RPM drill!

This drill, with a cobalt bit (also available there) will blast dowel-depth holes as past as you can move the drill.

See, to inoculate a log, you need to drillA LOT of holes. Then you whack these fungus-permeated dowels into the holes with a hammer. Seal over with a little wax, and that's about it. -TM-

 

[TreeJunkie]

is there a preferred time of year for shiitakes? What should the weather be? What type of wood do you prefer to innoculate into? How much should i do? I love the mushrooms ,,,so i would like to be able to harvest enough for2-3 people and be able to eat my fill....What kind of time period does it take from innoculation to harvest?

 

[Tree Machine]

http://www.fungi.com/index2.html

Fungi Perfecti is possibly the best mycological company in the world, with a very extensive catalog. Two books would beThe Mushroom Cultivator and Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms. You might be able to order, especially, the latter one at your local library. The author is Paul Stamets. Both are excellent how-to books. -TM-

 

[Tree Machine]

Where to go, how to learn

Mr Junkie, you get either one of those texts and read the shiitake chapter. Order some shiitake spawn from Mushroompeople. Read their informative, on-line catalog. There is a how-to piece on establishing outdoor morel patches, lesssseeeee..., here's the link: http://www.mushroompeople.com/cat2000/morel.html.

Gary wrote this geared toward morel cultivation indoors. My work was in establishing personal morel patchesoutdoors. -TM-

 

[TreeJunkie]

mr. Machine,
Thanks for all the info..I think you have definitely pointed me in the right direction. I think this might be a great deal of fun gettinng my own cultivation going...Thankyou!

 

[Tree Machine]

Here's another link for yo morel lovers. http://www.fungaljungal.org/

 

[Tree Machine]

I've got a short vacation coming up .....see ya

Hey guys, I've gotta step out for a week. I'm going up to see my 90yr old Grandfather. He's getting low on firewood, and it's steelhead season. Gots to do a little fishin.

I'll be back around april 12th, in time for Morel season. We'll talk more.

National Arborist Association can be contacted, there were a couple articles in the TCIA mag. May of 2004, and July of 2004. Ask them for the articles Mushroom 1 and Mushroom 2 from those months. Ask for a PDF of those articles.

See ya later. -TM-

 

[Gypo Logger]

I et zesse poysin shoom teday, do you shinks zat it was be
10784235yqgybvhsVBLJzlfffffffffffffgjiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

 

[Nickrosis]

Re: Send them in bushel basket quantities

Originally posted by Tree Machine
They don't necessarily have to be black.... -TM-

Priceless. You are a character.

A reminder to everyone: please ask mushroom questions over e-mail to reduce the traffic burden on the ArboristSite servers.

 

[Tree Machine]

That would be Amanita muscaria, the fly agaric.

Poisonous? All the books list it as such, but it's hallucinogenic with weird side effects. I think it's the one Alice ate when she went and visited Wonderland.

No, I've never had the balls. I hear if you eat them you might all of a sudden find yourself in a room full of butterflys, floating on a silken cloud, spinning, dizzy, erping out phrases like, shinks zat it was be 0784235yqgybvhsVBLJzlfffffffffffffgjiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii:alien: bleep

 

[M.D. Vaden]

The mushroom topic has just recently become of great interest to me. At the same time, I am begininng to really take a different look at forest preservation.

Anyway, I went to the woods a lot lately, and started photographing, especially the fungi mushrooms. One, fly agaric started my reading quest.

I started collecting for meals with the Chanterelle which I found interesting to be mycorrhizal. Many mushrooms are mycorrhizal fungi types.

It seems to me that I posted my album in another thread, but the photos I've taken so far are at http://imageevent.com/mdvaden/forestfloor

I found a very nice photo gallery and index for mushrooms about 2 weeks ago, and I lost the URL when we updated to a new Mozilla Firefox browser.

Now I know why shroom hunters don't tell where their patches are located. It took a while to find some Chanterelle patches that amounted to more than 3 or 4 mushrooms.

I want to master the ID and find the little guy that smells and tastes like garlic. The book says a couple of caps can flavor a pan of other mushrooms.