Question about plug spawn in the food forest

So I have a bunch of unknown trees coming up in my food forest that I didn't plant. Rather than just leave them, or even cutting them down, I plan to let them grow for another year, then cut them down and insert plug spawn for edible mushrooms into the stumps. The tops will just be chop and drop. What kind of mushrooms should I use? The trees are deciduous.

In the photo, they're coming up where the ground was harrowed.

You might want to let those grow for two years, the first year of a tree's life isn't going to make much trunk size (diameter), they are called whips for a very good reason, that's about how thick they get in year one, like a buggy whip stick.

Spawn selection should be determined by tree species, so you get a good yield when the fungi fruit.

Redhawk

Ohhh. Okay. I guess I need to figure out what they are then.

Most hardwoods will support everything except for Chicken of the woods which want conifer wood to eat.

Some mushrooms want to be in wood chips in the soil (wine caps and a few others that prefer detritus over solid wood)

Most good mushroom sites have listed the different mushrooms and which trees they prefer which makes it easy.

Redhawk

Bryant RedHawk wrote:Most hardwoods will support everything except for Chicken of the woods which want conifer wood to eat.

Some mushrooms want to be in wood chips in the soil (wine caps and a few others that prefer detritus over solid wood)

Most good mushroom sites have listed the different mushrooms and which trees they prefer which makes it easy.

Redhawk

Have you ever grilled chicken of the woods (aka: maitake)? It tastes like steak if you season it right. I mean like legit steak. It blew some minds when I made it last. My dinner guests were floored. I found the recipe online somewhere.  I need to get a logging permit and some way to haul some spruce and maple out of the forest... I'm big on mushrooms.

Maitake is a different fungus than Chicken of the Woods. Maitake form clusters of stemmed caps while COTW is more a shelfing fungus and usually orange in color where the Maitake is usually tannish brown.

Maitake indeed does taste rather steak like and the texture is meaty.
COTW taste like Chicken and is also meaty in texture.

We grow Lions mane, oyster, Jew's ear, King stroph, maitake, winecaps, chanterels and are going to try and add a few more species next spring.

The soils of Buzzard's Roost Farm are full of mycelium including most of the species of mycorrhizae fungi. (I have spent five years building the soil so it has plenty of fungi present everywhere, even in the woods I have added mycelium)
If we drop a seed, it will grow no matter where it is.
This year I noticed that the hog area has at least 5 rings of winecaps, which the hogs don't let grow to full size. (the chooks love mushrooms too)
we have plenty of oyster mycelium but the deer seem to know when to come do their picking outside the fenced in areas. I have no issue with that, it just means we have deer around should we need the meat or just want to have some deer stew or steaks or sausage.

Redhawk

Bryant RedHawk wrote:Maitake is a different fungus than Chicken of the Woods. Maitake form clusters of stemmed caps while COTW is more a shelfing fungus and usually orange in color where the Maitake is usually tannish brown.

Maitake indeed does taste rather steak like and the texture is meaty.
COTW taste like Chicken and is also meaty in texture.

We grow Lions mane, oyster, Jew's ear, King stroph, maitake, winecaps, chanterels and are going to try and add a few more species next spring.

The soils of Buzzard's Roost Farm are full of mycelium including most of the species of mycorrhizae fungi. (I have spent five years building the soil so it has plenty of fungi present everywhere, even in the woods I have added mycelium)
If we drop a seed, it will grow no matter where it is.
This year I noticed that the hog area has at least 5 rings of winecaps, which the hogs don't let grow to full size. (the chooks love mushrooms too)
we have plenty of oyster mycelium but the deer seem to know when to come do their picking outside the fenced in areas. I have no issue with that, it just means we have deer around should we need the meat or just want to have some deer stew or steaks or sausage.

Redhawk

Oh crud, I thought they were the same. My bad. I have a mushroom book in my cart, so I hope to identify them better in the future. But yeah, delish.

I thought shrooms need moist shadey spot and everything I've read all the spawn brochures call for 4" or larger trees to drill and plug, but I've yet to splurge on supplies and actually try iy, but I do have a bumper crop of naturally occurring turkey tails every year in the woods coming out of dead ash trees

bruce Fine wrote:I thought shrooms need moist shadey spot and everything I've read all the spawn brochures call for 4" or larger trees to drill and plug, but I've yet to splurge on supplies and actually try iy, but I do have a bumper crop of naturally occurring turkey tails every year in the woods coming out of dead ash trees

Turkey tails taste like wood to me. I don't mind the flavor really, but it's just a bit unusual. It reminds me of lichen that I ate for a survival course.

bruce Fine wrote:I thought shrooms need moist shadey spot and everything I've read all the spawn brochures call for 4" or larger trees to drill and plug, but I've yet to splurge on supplies and actually try iy, but I do have a bumper crop of naturally occurring turkey tails every year in the woods coming out of dead ash trees

Make sure what you are looking at is Turkey Tail.  There are look a likes.  THere is a Turkey Tail Test at mushroomexpert dot com.
I make Turkey Tail into a tincture.  It is an immune modulator and it has other benefits. Sloane Kettering has a Integrative Medicine site that can help.  https://www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/diagnosis-treatment/symptom-management/integrative-medicine/herbs/search
Mushrooms will do well in a moist environment.  A live tree is moist. I have a log shade tent where I mist them a couple times a week.  Turkey Tails grow almost anywhere near me but so does oyster, wood ear and reishi.