Growing chanterelles

We used to live out in the woods were chanterelles grow naturally. Now we live in the city and I haven't thought much about them. A month or two ago a friend brought me about 25 pounds of chanterelles and we ate and preserved a bunch. Because it was a little late in the season some of the 'shrooms were a little past due, so I kept them a little longer and made a slurry in my blender. I then poured it out in an area that never gets direct sunlight under some trees and shrubs.

What do you think my chances of getting a harvest in the next couple of years?

They are pretty host specific so your chances are not great, but if you have the right host/s you do at least have a chance. I dump all my old chanterelles/butt ends out in various places and live in hope, I've just moved house so have new places to try, including a huge mature beach tree which is one of the hosts, it has two edible mushroom species growing under it already, but I hope it still has space for another.

I'd agree that it's a bit of a longshot you'll get inoculation, but my wife has been doing the same thing at our house with the past due ones we find.  I'm in the same general area as you, and around here they primarily partner with Douglas Fir.  Stamets lists a few successful inoculations in his books, but apparently they require very specific conditions to succeed.  Still, if ya got extra mushrooms that got too old, why not make a slurry and give it a shot?

Jonathan Baldwerm wrote:I'm in the same general area as you, and around here they primarily partner with Douglas Fir.  

In the woods we were surrounded by Doug Fir. My neighbors have some on our property line so maybe next time I will throw some slurry there. Also, maybe a mulch of Doug Fir needles is all you need.

Chanterelles need live roots and forest floor duff from the Douglas fir, without the living root system of their host tree, they might take but probably won't do well if they do sprout from the spores.

(stems of mushrooms are only good for making soups for most of us) In a Laboratory we can sometimes get a cloning action going in agar agar petri dishes inoculated and placed in an incubator for about a month.

Instead of needles you will stand a better chance with wood chips or coarse sawdust, it will be sketchy without the active tree roots. (the roots send out exudates that attract the fungus since it is an arbuscular mycorrhizae species, and that tells you the connection to living roots)

I wish you great luck with this experiment.

Redhawk

Thank you Red and all. It just so happens that my neighbor has some Douglas fir on our property line and the roots are quite invasive. Next time I will throw my slurry there. If I would have known then what I know today I would have been throwing slurry all around my two acres of mostly Douglas fir when we lived in the woods.

It also depends on what type of Chanterelle you're dealing with. The eastern variety likes jack pine, for instance, and the ones out to the south and southwest like oak as well.

But this has been one of the layers of any windbreak or woodlot area in my planning for some time now. I make a really awesome cream of chanterelle soup.

-CK