Shiitake Mushrooms

The September shiitakes and NM blue sky

Shiitake logs number 1, 4, 17, and 23, are 'fruiting' this week. A half dozen mushrooms of various sizes are poking above the waterline as the logs soak in the cool rainwater of recent storms, and a dozen more 'pins'- indicate a decent sized harvest is coming, if I keep the conditions just right. The combination of a couple long, cool soaks in rainwater (4 and 3 days within 2 weeks), and cooler night-time temperatures awoke the logs from a long dry dormant period in the shade this summer. 

The beautiful lace-covered cap of a fresh shiitake

Each of the Gambel Oak logs, 40" long and bearing numbered aluminum log-tags--PBR can and nail--were harvested in the Zuni Mountains during the early winter of 2007. 35 logs took tens of hours of repetitive work that winter. Each required drilling 60 grid-spaced 3/8" holes, hand packing the sawdust-impregnated spawn, and finally capping each hole with 400 degree beeswax. For the first 5 months of the initial spawn run the logs needed to be kept warm and moist--not the easiest thing in the southwest. But with monthly soakings in the tank and keeping them inside and wrapped in plastic for fruiting, the logs have done well.  Harvests of couple pounds come staggered throughout the year.  

A 7" shiitake

I used 5.5 lbs. of sawdust spawn of  the WR46 strain of shiitakes--1 of a dozen different shiitake varieties--from the amazingly helpful people at Field and Forest Products. They also sell spawn for morel, oyster, winecap, reishi, maitake, and lions mane mushrooms, as well as all the supplies and tools to get started or become a grower. Oh, and they taste amazing!