Oyster mushrooms on a really tall stump

I’d like to grow mushrooms on a very tall stump and I can’t find a lot of reliable, specific information about that. Not sure if it’s because it’s a bad idea. I have a big Norway maple tree in my yard that I would like to cut down, and I’d like to leave a stump about 6 feet tall, with a diameter of about 20 inches. It will get maybe 5-7 hours of sun a day. (A bit too much, which is funny because I live in the woods and my problem is never too much sun.) I’d like to inoculate it with mushrooms that are easy to grow and native to the US, ideally the eastern US.

I would like to know:

If I should girdle the stump?
How long I should wait between cutting and inoculating -- can find lots of info for this on logs but can’t find good info for stumps. 2 weeks?
Do I need to wrap it?
Right now my plan is to use PoHu oyster spawn from Field and Forest: wide range of fruiting temperatures and noted by them to be very prolific and a good one to try on "experimental substrates."

The stump is very close to the house, so I can water it with a hose if needed.

I've tried something similar, but don't know yet if it worked. I had some left over shiitake spawn and an oak stump, so I filled the stump with plugs. I'll find out in 6 months or so.  I think Sepp Holzer has written about doing this in his permaculture book. But if I were you, I'd just call Field & Forest and ask them. I bet they've tried it, but haven't written about it because it's not a common question from their customers.

I hope your stump works out well! I did email Field and Forest and haven't heard back yet but I think it's a pretty busy season for them -- plus it's honestly a lot of questions for one $26 spawn sale. (I also want to buy their wood blewits and possibly king stropharia, but will probably do that regardless.) I will check out Sepp Holzer's book and see if I can find more information, thank you!

I have not done this. My concern is that intead of a dead stump, you'll have a short bushy tree that you are fighting, In my region, trees are vey insistant on surviving.

Something that I have seen, are sections of logs stacked tall that resemble a tall tree stump. These log sections had been innoculated and were producing mushrooms.

I went searching for images, guess who had them? Here, at Feild and Forest! I was unable to bring the images to my post.

Oyster mushrooms are an excellent choice, they are very adaptable and can make most inoculation situations work. They are also a good option because although they are primarily saprophytic, they can also be a facultative parasite as well. Thus while they won't parasitize an actively living tree, if it is on the way out, then it will certainly will.

I would definitely girdle the main stem. While girdling a tree will not kill the entire tree right away, in fact, it can take up to years for that to happen, the girdled trunk and canopy will die within a few days. Two weeks sounds like a good option for a waiting period, enough to let most of the defensive systems completely die but not enough to have it completely dry out or become the substrate of wild fungi. That being said, girdling will not kill the root system, you will almost certainly have numerous watersprouts and other shoots popping up that you will have to cut back. However, the tree will be severely weakened and if you continue cutting back its new shoots it will die.

I don't think it would be necessary to wrap the stump, but I would look into covering the inoculation holes with wax. The sunlight may be a problem but you could try shade cloth or another barrier to help reduce that. If the log wasn't 6 feet, I would say to try and let some of the watersprouts or other shoots pop up to give it some shade for a bit before cutting them, but it may be too tall for that.

If you want to use another species, you could try Lion's Mane or Black Poplar Mushroom. Both are choice edible mushrooms. The former is a weak facultative parasite, and the latter is known to be excellent for degrading stumps. They are both considered native to the Eastern US to my knowledge but I think Black Poplar is more commonly in the Southeast.

I also found this link on North Spore they may help, under "Stump Method":
https://northspore.com/pages/grow-mushrooms-on-logs-videos

I would also check out, "Growing Gourmet and medicinal mushrooms" by Paul Stamets. It's a very comprehensive guide to mushroom growing and well-regarded. There is a free pdf on the internet archive and the section on oyster mushrooms is on page 299. A long document but Control F helps a lot.

Hope this helps,
Eric S.