Peeling a douglas fir with fungus

The gappers and other volunteers at wheaton labs have put in HUNDREDS of man-hours peeling some 500 logs in preparation for wofati 0.8. I personally have peeled at least a hundred, I figure. That is a lot of time thinking about better ways to do the job. Lots of less work-intensive methods have been proposed. A popular one is that we girdle the trees at some critical point in the year and wait until the bark beetles eat the cambium away. Then when we fell the tree, the bark pretty much falls off as it hits the forest floor, and we get a much more aesthetic log with lots of cool bug trails.

I hypothesize that there is a variety of fungus with which we can inoculate the tree when we girdle, that will eat away the cambium layer of the douglas fir right quick. It is, after all, the most nutrient-rich part of the whole tree. Surely there is some organism that would love to dine upon it more than we enjoy peeling it with tools and sweat.

Hypholoma Capnoides is an edible fungus that will eat those logs. However, peeling the bark will make it less likely to do that. This also sounds not like what you are trying to do. I know of no species that will do exactly what you are trying to do.

Soaking them in water might help, but here in the West, you are unlikely to achieve much rain during this time of the year. You could experiment with pouring water on a section of tree to see if it would help the bark come off more easily.
John S
PDX OR