Home Grown

trampledbyturtles

5 year old buck +
Know a few on here like to garden, but curious if anyone has tried their hand at mushroom cultivation.

Cut down a couple spruce in the yard an have some 15ft logs I want to experiment with.

Any sugesstions on varities to try that can make it in zone 4a/b
Or
Recommendations for reputable places to get spores from.
 
Lots of companies out there that sell plugs and such for getting started in growing your own shrooms. Saw a presentation at a forestry field day awhile back and think most of the wood they said was best was dense hardwoods, like oak, maple, ironwood. Not sure if spruce and softwoods will grow the fungus that is good to eat. In particular this was for Shiitakes but they sell all sorts of types. Here's another source
https://www.fieldforest.net/

They list about 10 different varieties on their site
 
Those phoenix oysters are specifically for conifer logs. currently out of stock. they used to sell a variety of chicken mushrooms for conifers. i didn't see them listed at this time.
 
Thz for the heads up Ioshonhora. Was able to pick up a 100 of the Phoenix oyster plugs today after seeing your recommendation. Called them for some general info, great people to work with.

Should be a fun experiment.
 
I have red oak logs with shiitake and maple logs with grey oysters in Zone 4.
As was mentioned, for conifers you will want to use phoenix oyster mushrooms. I can't remember where I ordered the plug spawn, but i will check my emails and see if i can find it.
 
I bought it from 2Funguys on Amazon. Looks like they don't sell phoenix oyster.

But one thing I can suggest is wax your holes well with a sticky wax. A lot of mushroom people recommend cheese wax, but I find it to bee too brittle and not adhesive enough. Add a toilet ring to whatever wax you use, or just use pure toilet wax.
 
I hope it works out. Keep them hydrated. You can probably get them pretty well colonized this year.
 
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