Is it too late?

I had 6 loads of mixed woodchips (from city tree trimming) dumped here in February. I have spread about 4 loads already. What is left is getting white coated inside the pile. The only mushrooms I ever see around here are stinkhorns and the tiny birds nests. Sometimes when I water in the summer I see a cloud of redish brown spores of some kind but I don't know what it is. I have a bluish green lichen on almost every tree.

Anyway I'd like to make a slurry of portabellas (like mentioned another thread here) and spray into the pile of woodchips.
Would it take hold at all or is it too late since the pile has been there for 2 and a half months?

I'd like t get some other varieties growing in what I already spread also. There is no shade yet because my trees haven't leafed out yet and I have very few conifers. What I have spread is about 5-8 inches thick and I will be adding the remaining pile during the coming months as this base layer packs down. Under my chips is a layer of mostly oak and maple leaves and below that is last year's much. I don't have access to cow manure but I do have ducks.

Also have redbud tree that broke from the heavy snows la winter and fell over about 3 weeks ago. Can I plug it with something edible or is it too old?
I haven't cut into logs yet and it's about 4- 6" diameter.

(Edited to fix a typo.)

Julie,

Portobellos are a lawn mushroom and will likely have an impossible time hacking it on a pile of woodchips. Here's the wiki on them.

Link

I am putting my slurry on my lawn around my well manured and composted garden beds. Now if you where to make a slurry of Oyster mushrooms they might have a fighting chance, even on a woodchip pile which sounds like its already colonized.. I am not familiar with 'redbud' but 3 weeks is about how long I let my logs age before I inoculate them it is enough time to mitigate the trees natural defenses but not enough time to be colonized by a competitor. Hope this post is helpful to you.

You're better off trying to grow Wine Caps (King Stropharia).
http://www.fieldforest.net/Wine-Cap/products/16/

I don't know if this is allowed, but my company sells reishi mushroom kits that would be perfect for innoculating a woodchip pile. We also have shiitake kits, but I'm not sure they would do as well in this type of situation.

I agree with all stated above about avoiding portabellas on woodchips, and would also add that while a spore slurry may be effective, you would be much better off buying oyster, wine cap, reishi or some other type of sawdust spawn and distributing that through the pile. Many mushroom places, including my own, sell these as 'mushroom kits', but they can be used as spawn too.

Tthanks. I figured it was probably too late to inoculate the pile. I don't know how to tell if the pile had fungus or just mold in it.
I tried to look up plugging redbud but there seems to be a type of shiitake called redbud so sites are about plugging oak and maple.