Sourcing Fungi for new hugelkultur bed

I have some cottonwood that I would like to inoculate with Fungi,
I am thinking drilling holes into the logs and inserting inoculated wooden dolls.
What Fungi species should I use and where can I buy it?

I do enjoy eating mushrooms, and I will be running chickens through the Hugelkultur beds once established.
I will be growing some fruit trees, berry bushes, chicken forge and veggies.

Welcome Andrew. Wooden dowels are used in shitake production. The best wood is oak, with maple and fruit woods sometimes used. I would try a small run with cottonwood to see if it works. For regular fungi to rot the bed, any old rotten wood will contain it, and the spores are on the wind.

In this thread, I explore the idea of cultivating mushrooms on logs which protrude from hugelkultur beds. --- https://permies.com/t/18788/hugelkultur/Log-Hugelkultur-grow-mushrooms-bed

John Elliott will soon arrive in his soil superhero cape, to give further advice.

Hi Andrew,

If you just use the wood "as is" you will be fine. If you are trying to "expedite" the process, which may or may not be possible always with buried wood, the solution we used in mycology was to take a "coring bit (there are several varieties) and go to the same species (in your case cotton wood) and take cores from wood that already have active fungal mycelium. You then drill holes in the wood to be inoculated and place these cores in them. Hope that makes since and we would love to read about your results.

Regards,

j

I am not finding the supplier right now. There used to be an outfit that sold dowels for about 50 varieties of mushrooms. Right now this is the best I can find with 5 varieties.

mushroom dowels

Hi Andrew. Since you are in WA, you should go see the folks at Fungi Perfecti in Olympia. They should be able to set you up with exactly the right thing.

Mushrooms don't grow equally well on all types of wood. If I had cottonwood, I would grow oysters. I would definitely not inoculate that wood with shiitake. They are easily overtaken when the wood touches the ground. Shiitake are grown on pallets so that they don't touch the ground and get taken over by weed fungi. Oysters are the dominant species on that cottonwood. Your type of oyster will depend on your climate. Where are you located? There may be other species that would work well depending on your location.
John S
PDX OR

John Saltveit wrote:Mushrooms don't grow equally well on all types of wood. If I had cottonwood, I would grow oysters. I would definitely not inoculate that wood with shiitake. They are easily overtaken when the wood touches the ground. Shiitake are grown on pallets so that they don't touch the ground and get taken over by weed fungi. Oysters are the dominant species on that cottonwood. Your type of oyster will depend on your climate. Where are you located? There may be other species that would work well depending on your location.
John S
PDX OR

I love the idea of growing Oysters, I am located in Aberdeen, Washington.

See this Link for monthly temperatures and rain averages.

"Aberdeen experiences a climate on the boundary between Mediterranean (Köppen Csb) and oceanic (Köppen Cfb). Although the rainfall is extremely high between October and March, July and August still have a distinct excess of evaporation over rainfall. " - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberdeen,_Washington

John Elliott wrote:Hi Andrew. Since you are in WA, you should go see the folks at Fungi Perfecti in Olympia. They should be able to set you up with exactly the right thing.

Thanks John, They sell in fact a Garden Fungi.
http://www.fungi.com/shop/fungi-for-healthy-gardens-and-garden-supplies.html

I am thinking of using this Fungi in my Garden Beds, while using something else (an eatable) on a few logs left out in the open.
Does Fungi Perfecti have a store front? So far unless I sign up for a class, It looks like I would have to get the productions shipped to me.
I already goto Olympia once a month anyways..

Speaking of Which, John if you know of a good farmers market or something in Olympia let me know, when do they open and the address?
I'm new to the area..

I am also thinking of using the Garden Fungi to start my seeds in.

Andrew Winsor wrote:
Does Fungi Perfecti have a store front?

I was hoping you would tell me. I only know them from their reputation (Paul Stamets). He's quite the name in applied mycology. There are many other places that sell "plug spawn" if you use that search term in Google, but I haven't ordered from any of them. I'm kind of a do-it-yourselfer when it comes to mushrooms and fungal cultivation. You can be too, if you see interesting edible varieties when you go walking in the woods. Try culturing them yourself, it's not that difficult.

John Elliott wrote:

Andrew Winsor wrote:
Does Fungi Perfecti have a store front?

I was hoping you would tell me. I only know them from their reputation (Paul Stamets). He's quite the name in applied mycology. There are many other places that sell "plug spawn" if you use that search term in Google, but I haven't ordered from any of them. I'm kind of a do-it-yourselfer when it comes to mushrooms and fungal cultivation. You can be too, if you see interesting edible varieties when you go walking in the woods. Try culturing them yourself, it's not that difficult.

I've done some mushroom cake mason jars before and it is really fun and something I would love to do again with my kids. I also have the Pocket Naturalist guide to mushrooms incase I do find any out in the field. Would really love to get my hand on some Blewit (Clitocybe nuda) for example. I also think that it should be very easy to mail spore prints and if your interested in spreading any spores let me know and I will help you help them.

I am trying to grow blewits in my yard. I called up Fungi Perfecti and they had no store front. Shipping only. The regular native tree oysters work great. You can buy Pleurotus Ostreatus from almost anywhere. We find them in the forest. I live nearby. I found a blewit while hiking with my kids last year. Many types of fungi can be grown in your yard. Stamets did an experiment with Hypsizygus Ulmarius (white elm oyster) in the actual vegetable bed. It grew well and helped cruciferous vegetables produce much more as well. This is a very cool finding because normally cruciferous vegetables don't work with mycorrhizal fungi, but they seem to work with them. Cruciferous vegetables are some of our most delicious cancer-fighters as well as the basis of most probiotic lacto-fermented sauerkrauts.
John S
PDX OR

Here is what I ended up ordering

https://permies.com/t/31638/cascadia/Year-Fungi-Order

An option for a "store front" is Provisions Mushrooms down at the Olympia Farmer's Market. That market usually opens around April 1st. No foolin.

Christian, who runs Provisions Mushrooms, is a very nice guy and knows his stuff. I have used contaminated bags from Provisions, Fungi Perfecti (I knew folks who worked there), and other folks who make grow bags. I threw them in my hugelkultur beds, compost heaps, and mulched paths. Maybe Christian would sell you contaminated bags for cheap? (Contaminated means bags that have other fungi and organisms present on the substrate and therefore aren't OK to sell). http://www.promushrooms.com

And, in Olympia there's this guy Peter McCoy who teaches a lot of workshops on growing mushrooms at home. Here's a course he's teaching in Portland in ten days http://radicalmycology.wordpress.com/events-2/cultivation-courses/mushroom-cultivation-application-course-in-portland-or-january-28-30-2014/. He's been a source for contaminated bags for me as well and has some aggressive Oyster strains.

I agree Pleurotus ostreatus is the way to go for cottonwood. You will likely find some wild growing around creeks on downed red alders around Aberdeen in early June through July (when it's still wet). The wet westside of the Olympics are amazing for mushrooms, especially chantrelles.