Shiitake needs help!

Hi all,
I'm hoping for some advice on shiitake and lions mane on logs.
What is the LONGEST anyone has waited for shiitake to pin?
I understand that shiitakes prefer oak, but I have green ash, mulberry and siberian elm in my yard.
So I innoculated an ash log with shiitake dowels and a mulberry log with lions mane in early March of 2020. These were both live healthy trees when cut the previous November.
So it's been 20 months since innoculation of both logs. Ive tried all the shocking tricks, pounding, ice soaking. The bark is coming off as there's a brown fuzzy fungi growing on the edges of shiitake log (pics).
I have yet to see a single mushroom.
Should I toss it? Is it a lost cause at this point?
Thank you for any suggestions.

Field&forest company has a list of tree species for mushroom growing.  There's little information on Ash so I guess it is not a good choice for shiitake. Couple years ago when I grew shiitake,  I ran out of oak logs so I used a couple eastern redbud logs cut down at the same time. The oak logs fruited after one year but the redbud didn't. Two years later, i saw only a few mushrooms on redbud log when oak logs reached peak production.

Maybe your ash logs will still produce some giving more time but I am not too optimistic.

Hmmm, it is difficult sometimes to ID the mycelium of various species that have been inoculated onto logs- especially from online pictures alone. But if the bark is coming off and you haven't harvested any mushrooms- that's not a good sign.
Did you leave any uninoculated ash logs from the same tree outside? If yes, do they look similar? In other words, could your shiitake log be contaminated with the wrong species?
I also use "fragrance" to identify mycelium. Does the shiitake log smell like shiitake mushrooms? Or like the uninoculated logs?

Ash is not usually recommended for shiitake either- maybe because the bark slips off too easily? However, mulberry IS recommended for lion's mane. I usually use oak or chinquapin for shiitake and oak for lion's mane.

The longest I've waited on shiitake logs is about 18 months. The shortest about 4 months. Lion's Mane is much slower and usually takes 1-2 years, although heavy inoculations could fruit sooner. My advice- don't give up yet, keep both logs in a shaded, moist area and keep waiting and watching till next spring. Until then, make sure the logs don't dry out. Even if the logs  are partially  contaminated they might still fruit, like some of my lion's mane logs did last year- I've got about four species of fungi on some of those logs now!  Good luck!

Thank you!
The shiitake log smelled very mushroomy this spring before the bark started falling off. But I dont notice it anymore. I guess I'll have to wait and see.
Thank you again. 😁

I would think you’d really have to soak the ash before inoculation.  Ash is an incredibly dry wood. In nature, the only mushroom I’ve seen on dead ash trees had been oysters, and dead ash tends to shed its bark easily within the first year or two after dying.