M.K. Dorje

I grow Almond Agaricus on fresh leached cow manure compost mixed with lime. I have a 100% success rate for this technique. Do not use cedar chips or sawdust- that won't work at all. Please see this old thread about Almond Agaricus:

https://permies.com/t/33807/fungi/Growing-Portabellows-wild

Good luck! You'll be glad you grew this one! These mushrooms are INCREDIBLY delicious!!!

Janet, I can't find any reference to a "Blackboy" Peach in my 2001 edition of the Seedsaver's Exchange book entitled "Fruit, Berry and Nut Inventory"- an inventory of nursery catalogs listing all varieties of fruit available by mail order in the United States. It isn't mentioned in the older edition, either. However, both Raintree (raintreenursery.com) and Burnt Ridge (burntridgenursery.com)
carry "Indian Free" Peach- grafted onto Lovell Rootstock. This one is also known as "Indian Blood Free". The other (clingstone) version is referred to as "Indian Blood", "Indian Blood Cling" or "Indian Red Cling".
I have a couple of "Indian Blood Free" Peach trees in my orchard- both grown from seed. The older one is my favorite tree in the world and has the most delicious peaches I've ever tasted, with brownish-red fuzzy skin, dark purplish-red flesh marbled with creamy stripes. These trees are resistant to peach leaf curl and bacterial canker. The peaches ripen late (early October in Oregon!) and they are THE BEST! I'm trying to germinate more seeds from the older tree this spring, but so far, no sprouting yet.

I don't know much about the mycofiltration questions in your second paragraph, but I do know that Paul Stamets has used king stropharia for mycofiltration and oyster mushrooms to clean up oil spills.
Aquatic fungi are rather rare in nature and almost none of them (as far as I know) form mushrooms. (But I may be wrong...) The mycelium of the "regular" (terrestrial) mushrooms I've studied cannot survive being submerged in water for more than a few days, as least as far as I can tell. They all need to breathe in order to survive.
The byproduct of fungal respiration is CO2. In other words, fungi breathe in oxygen and they breathe out carbon dioxide, just like animals.
I hope this helped answer your questions!

According to Robert Rogers in his book, "The Fungal Pharmacy", violet-pored bracket fungus (T. abietinum) shows activity against E. coli and Staphylococcus aureus bacteria. A closely related species, the purple-toothed polypore (T. biforme), has been studied and has shown been shown to have anti-tumor activity.

Matching the right species of fresh wood to the right species of mushroom is of critical importance. Just grabbing some dirty logs of an unknown species and inoculating them with any species of mushroom probably won't work. The folks at Field and Forest (fieldforest.net) have a great selection of high quality spawn. Start with something easy- like king stropharia/winecap mushrooms on fresh hardwood chips. This species is perfect for myco-permaculture. Rent or borrow a chipper, or get free fresh hardwood or Doug-fir chips from a local arborist/tree service dumped on your property- but be sure to ask them about what kind of trees the chips are from. Above all, read the classic books by Paul Stamets on mushroom cultivation: "The Mushroom Cultivator", "Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms" and "Mycelium Running". These books are often available at your local library. If you live in North America or Europe, this is the best time of year to get started on a mushroom growing project.

Thank you, I really enjoyed this video. The last few years I've mulched my blueberry garden with lots of wood chips and inoculated the mulch with king stropharia mycelium. The blueberry bushes really seem to thrive in this environment and I had a ton of berries and mushrooms last year. I'm currently mulching my main orchard/food forest with wood chips, limestone rock dust/gravel and elm oyster mycelium, I'm also doing some of this mulching in my main vegetable garden now, too.
One small correction: I noticed John said "white cap mushroom spores", I think he meant to say "wine cap mushroom spawn". "Wine cap" is the other name for king stropharia, which is one of the best mushroom species for wood chip mulching and permaculture.
One question, does anyone know where to get azomite rock dust in Oregon for free?

Bobby and Stewart are also correct in stating that shiitake can be grown on sawdust blocks/cakes indoors, but I didn't mention this as most people won't have an autoclave or large pressure cooker to sterilize the sawdust/bran blocks before inoculation. In fact, this is the most popular and economical method for large scale commercial shiitake growers. (Logs are better for small time growers who lack autoclaves or even big pressure cookers. (Like me.) Good luck and keep us updated!

Brent, I use shiitake sawdust spawn to inoculate logs using the "spawn disc method", in which the spawn is applied to the cut ends of the logs and then wax paper and tin foil "socks" are wrapped and crinkled over and around the spawn. Then rubber bands are tightened over the foil to hold the spawn in place. I also cut slots up and down the sides of the logs, insert spawn, and cover with wax paper and then tin foil. Then I tighten more rubber bands over the spawn/paper/foil to hold everything in place. I then place the logs in big plastic bags in a closet at 60-70 degrees, I've also used a method where the inoculated logs are placed in huge cardboard boxes in an unused room, then covered with clean sawdust. With these indoor spawn methods I've had a 100% success rate without any contaminants. (Except ants! Yow..) With shiitake cultivation, outdoor spawn runs with logs are best done with dowel spawn and wax, as the wooden dowels are more resistant to weather fluctuations, sowbugs, insects and contaminant molds than the sawdust spawn.

When you say "patch", do you mean pre-inoculated kits that have been placed outside for more production, or do you mean outdoor wood chip beds that you've inoculated with mushroom spawn yourself?
In general, shiitake does not grow well on outdoor wood chip beds, because the mycelium is too weak to overcome competition from other species. I suggest growing shiitake on freshly-cut hardwood logs (especially oak) and after completing an indoor spawn run in bags or huge boxes, placing the logs outside in the shade of an orchard for soaking and fruiting. I have excellent results with this technique.
King stropharia is an great species to grow outside in "patches". A ratio of 1 to 5 (spawn to fresh hardwood chips/sawdust) is good for beginner cultivators. Do not use old or dried out chips. In late winter, I like to inoculate fresh hardwood chips/sawdust in boxes or large plastic bags at a ratio of about 1 to 10 (spawn to chips/sawdust). After a temperature-controlled indoor spawn run at about 60 - 70 degrees, I then inoculate beds outside at a ratio of 1 to 5 (spawn to chips/sawdust). (This indoor spawn run technique can give me a lot more mushrooms by multiplying my spawn tenfold before I begin the outdoor inoculations in mid-spring.) For faster fruiting, I just bury the entire box from the indoor spawn run outside into a shadey area. King stropharia begins fruiting in July with this method.
I always try to keep my oyster and king stropharia patches separate. (I 'm not into substrate "sequencing", although this might work for some people.) Mulching your orchard/food forest with king stropharia in wood chips is another method I recommend. I hope all this advice helps!

Thanks Tel. I always enoy your posts, especially since we live in the same region, you give good advice and you also grow fruit and mushrooms. I've also been cutting poplars/cottonwoods around my farm lately to get more light into my main orchard and I'm also using the logs and chips for mushroom cultivation. I'm surprised by how vigorously the poplar logs and chips resprout after cutting and even chipping. Even small chips resprout rootlets before the oyster or king stropharia mycelium munches them. Some oyster-inoculated logs resprouted numerous white branchlets after months in a dark closet. I just pull them off.
Because of the vigorous resprouting, I've been hesitating to use fresh poplar logs in hugelkultur. In fact, I always use older, more rotten logs as nurse logs, as my fruit trees and bushes can utilize the old logs faster. But I'm guessing that resprouting won't be a problem for you since you've buried your logs pretty deep and your logs are from native black cottonwoods, not hybrid poplars like mine probably are. Keep us updated and as always, good luck with all of your projects!