Dennis A Mitchell

Thanks Bruce.  I did spend some time hollowing out one stump last night and the amount of time I spent, I could have probably ground it out with a stump grinder.  I also came to the conclusion that with the cost of fruit trees,  that I'd rather not gamble with their survival.

I am interested though in this as a concept, so I may still try 1 or 2 with transplanted feral fruit seedlings I can get for free, as well as a few with fungi inoculation.

I'd also like to thank everyone for all of the fungi info and recommendations.  I'm definitely liking forward to trying my hands at fungi.

I will be sure to post some follow ups.  Any recommendations on where to purchase spores from?

That is a great idea.  We are hoping to get some fruit tree established ASAP but I might look into this further.  I was planning on leaving the larger 18"+ stumps and pulling some of the smaller stumps but the fungi may be a better idea.

Thanks!

I recently purchased a house but the entire property was filled with mature pines, oaks and maple.  We finally had about an acre cleared out so we can start planting fruit trees.  I am torn about what to do with the stumps.   I have seen some people hollow out the centers out of stumps and use them as planters, generally with annuals.  I was wondering about something similar but with fruit trees.  My thought was to cut the stump flush with the ground, hollow out roughly a  foot wide bowl and drill some 1/2" holes through the base of the bowl until I reach soil.  In my mind this does several things.  It saves me the time, money and fuel of renting a stump grinder or mini-excavator and it should speed up the decomposition of the stumps as well keeping the organic material in the ground.

Has any one attempted this with known results or does anyone have any resources about this idea?