Lucky you! Although most westerners find "wood ears" bland, I love them and have only ever eaten the ones I buy in Chinese grocery stores. Just last week a friend who forages regularly found some and gifted them to me. Yum.
I am not an expert but went to "Mushroom Camp" at Cornell University years ago and learned about growing mushrooms on logs. From what I learned there I will extrapolate some (untested) ideas:
Since the fungi are the fruiting bodies there are two ways to go.
The mycelium, which colonize the
wood, are the actual organism. First, harvest some of the wood from which the Auricularia fruit and macerate it (grind, smash, break up) well
enough to get it such that you can squish it in your hands like, say, a potting mixture or like peat moss. Then you can use it like the loose mycelial innoculant you buy for cultivating mushrooms. You didn't say what knowledge base you have on mushroom cultivation but there is plenty of material out there on the subject. You will be drilling holes in the new substrate and packing your homemade innoculant into them and then sealing the holes with cheese wax. Never having found Auricularia growing wild, I don't know what species they prefer or whether they grow on living or dead wood. Basically, you will have best success if you can identify what they are growing on and then innoculate the same species in the same state. If growing on dead wood, best bet would be freshly cut bolts so that the wood is not already colonized with competing species of fungi. If colonizing a live tree, then you need to choose a new host. Be observant, live trees can have dead branches that bear fungi. That's dead wood. I have found jelly fungi on dead branches when they fall off the maples in my yard.
I am interested in how it goes. How about some pictures of the existing tree/wood where you found them and your experiment as it proceeds?
Good luck!
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