Any ideas - maitake stump

[waterboy 2.0]

Well then I am at a loss at the moment. Its a little bit epic.....

Was playing with maitake (Grifola frondosa) and just had no end of issues getting it to fruit right on sawdust blocks, couldnt give it the right amount of air exchange and keep up humidity. The bastard would get to the ready to expand stage, and then stall and rot (its smells very fishy when it "turns").

So I thought WTF and expanded it out onto dowels, and plugged them into a Black Peppermint stump (E.amygdalina). Well it didnt think it would happen but the bugger is having a go at fruiting...... but I am losing humidity very quickly now so it looking likely to stall and fail.

any ideas on how to help ???? was considering one of those oven bags with holes in it to raise humidity, but will then give issues with air exchange. Possibly also damp hessian bag rigged up somehow. I want to keep the stump insitu, rather than attempt chainsaw surgery at this stage.

Its too dark for any piccies atm, will get a few up over the coming days. I know someone will be keen...lol

Yes I am giving it water BTW

[waterboy 2.0]

Piccies.... and decision has been made to cut the remaining stump and bury it under the ground.

[BentoSpawn]

Never tried growing shrooms on a stump but i would have covered it with hessian and kept the hessian damp. The hessian breathes well, so FAE would not have been a problem, and the humidity under the hessian would have been pretty decent.

But like i said, i have no experience in this matter. Keep us up to date on your grow though, i do find this interesting thanks for sharing !

[waterboy 2.0]

Hey bento,

if you cover stumps/logs in general you usually get competition moulds, particularly Trichoderma. I found this out in my early days with shiitake logs.

Maitake needs a hell of a lot of FAE, more than any fungi I have played with, the main issue I had trying to get sawdust blocks to successfully fruit. It is not in mainstream production due to the costs involved in grow room establishment and operation.

The fact it is having a go at fruiting from a euc stump amazes me, it typically grows naturally on dead/dying deciduous hardwoods (oaks mainly). So it will colonise euc sawdust and will get into wood, not sure if it will sustain it.

Best chance is burial, and hope for the fruit to push through the soil. Which is more like the natural growth habit where it will form a sclerotium, and will hold moisture better and at a constant level.

[BentoSpawn]

Ah ok that makes plenty of sense,

I have seen hessian bags used commercially (this very well could be old/ tek) covering mounds with mushrooms to keep humidity up while still letting air through, this is why i figured it would work with a stump, obviously not though !

I do like your inoculation method btw, that is pretty ingenious and makes hell of a lot of sense.

Wouldn't burying the stump really mess up FAE though ? Or do you plan to leave half of it sticking out ? Again i am not pretending to know any better, but i do find this quite interesting as i would like to try growing some wood loving shiitake or other similar edible someday

[waterboy 2.0]

in regrards to FAE burying the stump come log, yep game over i reckon for any fruit this yes. Fully buried stump.

But the hope is next season the fruit will push through the soil, like naturally growing maitake, so the fruit will be exposed but not the substrate. Just like the image on the page below:

http://www.mushroomadventures.com/t-dowel_spawn_instruction.aspx

[BentoSpawn]

tnx for all the info good luck with ya grow !

[dionysus]

i like that on that page you linked to WB where it says 'wood not to use: eucalyptus' you showed them

[waterboy 2.0]

lol dionysus, was the only page I could find with an image of what I was thinking of. Interesting they exclude eucs particularly as its the wood of choice for many countries shiitake production and then lumped them in with conifers.

Ah, the internet good to know its still full of shit

*still dont know if I can pull a successful maitake fruiting though.

[waterboy 2.0]

well after a week soaking in a creek to charge up the water content, I have bedded the log in ground (*thank you for being crafty enough to had fabricated a log roller for firewood collection...lol).

Hole was dug and bedded the log down on a thick layer of sphagnum moss and backfilled. Theory is to hold a better moisture bank and help prevent the soil drawing water out of the wood during summer. In an area that gets dappled light for most of the day.

WIll see what this puppy does next year then......

[Psylo]

Waterboy, have you ever tried using milled hardwood instead of stumps, or are they chemically treated for the building industry?

[waterboy 2.0]

No I haven't Psylo, and it made me think a fair bit and now I going to crap on.

I will say again this was for a laugh, after getting many failures to get the right growing conditions to get maitake to successfully finish its complex fruiting in an indoor growing environment on sawdust blocks. I will master this species eventually, but will have construct a pretty interesting ghetto styled climate controlled tent/mini greenhouse I think.

I have used millwood shavings and dust in a sawdust block and this can be very productive for some species (wood ears,reishi and shiitake really take off) in controlled environments., but I think milled timber would be no good in general.This is from my current understanding of you generally use a stump after about 2 weeks of it being fresh felled, and this is to have a good water content and a lack of competitors in the wood.

Eucs generally have something in them that will inhibit growth, hence 2 weeks grace before inoculating.

You usually cut the log fresh , generally start of spring and not allow it to touch the ground. This stump was initially one I was keen to get something to run in it and consume it because its in a difficult place to burn up or pull out. Specific cut logs or thinnings from plantation growth are my substrates of choice, or sawdust/shaving for wood blocks (which are also amended).

That said when I now am thinking hardwood millwood I am thinking - greenwood vs seasoned/kiln dried timbers. Greenwood may work if you had access to it ....????. Not used in house construction now, may find it as old school fence palings though.

In regards to treatments (CCA as example) its used only for outdoor exposed or inground applications for softwoods(pine generally).

I have always looked asked about the production materials before accepting any shavings/sawdust from particularly joinery shops. I am pretty sure that a mix of harwood/CCA timbers and particle board dust would support most wood lovin mushies, now can mushroom species x metabolise (I am sure) and accumulate some bad shit (copper/chromium/arsenic/formaldahyde) I care not to find out.

Bioremediation is one thing, food/medicine production is another.

Edited November 3, 2012 by waterboy