growing mushrooms on logs

Hello, I live in a rural area and my land has a lot of ash trees and I was thinking of growing some mushrooms, which species do I want to try oyster mushroom, what do you recommend or if anyone has had experiences with ash trees, I hope they can help me ✌🏼

Welcome to Permies!

I don't see why you wouldn't have success with oysters in ash trees. It might be a great opportunity to try and locate ash tree boletes to try and inoculate them in the area as well. Tons of possibilities!

I saw that those from North Spore in the tables show that oyster in ash wood would not work, they show that pholiota Adiposa or nameko would work

That is interesting, I have seen ash trees with oyster mushrooms but perhaps they were a certain type? I feel like blue oyster might be in that vein, but I am not certin

Here is another Permies thread that kind of echos it - https://permies.com/t/39341/Mountain-Ash-tree-full-oysters

If you have the time and are willing, it would make an awfully neat experiment to see if you can get results.

I did a quick google search for "Ash tree compatible mushroom strains", and got this result:

https://www.gourmetmushrooms.co.uk/mushroom-species-to-tree-species-info-table/

It shows here that Chicken of the woods and Enoki are both compatible!  Great tasting mushrooms!  

I spend almost a decade doing some basic tree trimming and felling for my local area, and soon figured out that one of the most common invasive tree species happened to be an excellent host for Shiitake. I started experimenting over time, and within a few years had my own collection of hundreds of stacked logs. People started asking me to give presentations and classes, so i did!  It was a lot of fun.  

Everybody seems to be focusing on Shiitake and Oyster, as they tend to be the easiest, but if you have an abundance of a particular wood species that pairs well with something different, then there might be some opportunity here for you.  Even if just on a part time smaller scale basis.  

Every strain of mushroom has its own requirements. Some prefer freshly cut materials, some prefer already rotted, some prefer softer woods, and others hard woods that mainly come from non fruit bearing trees.  

I don't have much experience with Chicken of the woods or Enoki, but it shouldn't be too difficult to figure out what their needs will be.  Paul Stamets books were some of my favorite references - "Mycelium Running" and "Growing Gormet and Medicinal Mushrooms". Tradd Cotters book was also very helpful - "Organic Mushroom Farming and Micoremediation".  

Hopefully somebody here that has played with Enoki and COWs will chime in with some insights.  Ill probably start looking into this out of curiosity now, too.  Ill edit this post with more info if i can come up with something helpful for you.  

If you do have success with chicken of the woods, remember to cook it before eating, I've heard that raw they're dangerous, but cooked they're perfect for eating.  I know you have to grow them first, but just warning you beforehand.