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 Paresthesia
Registered: 07/02/08
Posts: 428
Loc: Texas
Last seen: 59 minutes, 43 seconds
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 I have... a log. Suggestions?
#8594176 - 07/04/08 06:52 AM (4 months, 26 days ago) |
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I have a chinese elm (Ulmus parvifolia) growing in my front yard next to the driveway. After a hurricane a few years back, one of the heavier branches snapped, and recovered after a while, but guys... its ugly. So Ill be performing surgery this weekend that will leave me with a log approximately 6"-8" across and 5 long.
So Id like to get some plug spawn and inoculate this log. For those of you unfamiliar with the chinese elm, it has very thin bark that peels off in patches. So are shiitakes out? What should I do with the wood?
I live in East Texas and its ungodly hot here, but temps hover in the 50s-60s all through the winter. Also, a few years back another branch died and there was a bit of rot in the hollow the branch left. For a while there, a tiny little orange mushroom grew in the hollow. I wish Id taken a picture, it was so cool looking!
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"We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."
- T. S. Eliot
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FreeSporePrints
stronzo chilegge
Registered: 03/06/05
Posts: 908
Loc: Rome, ITALY
Last seen: 22 hours, 16 minutes
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Re: I have... a log. Suggestions? [Re: Paresthesia]
#8594986 - 07/04/08 01:42 PM (4 months, 26 days ago) |
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tiny bark is good, the important thing however is the sapwood, full of sugars.
sorry for the stupid question but which season is actually there? is winter? logs should be cutten and immediately inoculated before any germination of the tree(last winter), when the sugars are high in the sapwood.
Tiny bark is okay because you'll have primordia soon, but you also have a greater moisture loss.
Shiitake for me is okay!
Let us know,
Fabio
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Paresthesia
Registered: 07/02/08
Posts: 428
Loc: Texas
Last seen: 59 minutes, 43 seconds
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It's well into Summer now, and I live in the US Gulf Coast region so it tends to stay in the upper 90s with periods of drought interspersed with the occasional week of torrential rain.
I decided to go with elm oysters and ordered a sack of 500 inoculated dowels. I'm assuming I can inoculate an outdoor bed with them but I plan on doing some transfers to grain later on. I'm building a box-type bed for my fall potato crop, and I'm trying a little polyculture experiment inspired by Stamets' last book.
Tell me how crazy this is. Potatoes only set new tubers ABOVE the initial seed potato planting. This growing technique involves building up the walls of the bed as more dirt is hilled up on the plants themselves. I plan on building up the shaded sides of the beds with hardwood mulch and elm oyster spawn and just lining the sides with chicken wire and burlap. They'll stay covered with silage wrap until the fall when we get more rain and the temps drop. I'm laying a soaker hose over the top of the bed and will water it daily for the potatoes. The soil itself is a mixture of garden compost, cow manure and topsoil. When I dig up the potatoes next winter I'll use the mulch to seed another outdoor bed.
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"We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."
- T. S. Eliot
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Paresthesia
Registered: 07/02/08
Posts: 428
Loc: Texas
Last seen: 59 minutes, 43 seconds
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Re: I have... a log. Suggestions? [Re: Paresthesia]
#8657873 - 07/20/08 06:52 AM (4 months, 10 days ago) |
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So I wasted a lot of time and got distracted by other projects... and I only got around to cutting the limb off yesterday. I'm so ashamed. The log itself is fairly straight, about seven feet long and about the girth of.. a loaf of bread or something. I should measure it. The bark is very thin, too.
So how long should I let it sit before innoculating? I have a shady spot picked out under a huge old pecan tree, and I plan on digging a trench, partially burying it in wood chips and using it as a border for a flower bed. I have a sack of dowel spawn chlling in the fridge now, and it should be fine for a few months.
There's also a small southern sugar maple tree in the yard that needs to come down--it's diseased. Not sure what's wrong with it. So when I cut it down, is it safe to use?
Last question! Are spent logs of any use? What is done with them?
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"We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."
- T. S. Eliot
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dwpineal
Stranger
Registered: 07/20/06
Posts: 220
Last seen: 3 hours, 46 minutes
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Re: I have... a log. Suggestions? [Re: Paresthesia]
#8667987 - 07/22/08 02:20 PM (4 months, 8 days ago) |
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You should be able to go ahead and inoculate the stump when it is relatively fresh cut. I would not wait more than about 10 days to inoculate to avoid any competitor fungi invading the space.
Maple is usually a tree species that is noted as being acceptable-to-good producer, but I'm not sure about Souther Sugar Maple specifically, but it sounds good. If you have the spawn, go for it.
Spent logs - after about 5 years of faithful production they've been metabolized to such a great extent by the resident fungi that they are now a fraction of their fresh-cut weight and solidity. They are easily composted and highly nutritious as compost additive actually.
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Paresthesia
Registered: 07/02/08
Posts: 428
Loc: Texas
Last seen: 59 minutes, 43 seconds
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Re: I have... a log. Suggestions? [Re: dwpineal]
#8670618 - 07/23/08 05:21 AM (4 months, 7 days ago) |
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Rain rain rain... Hurricane Dolly has brought much needed rain with it. (I'm not in the path of the storm.) So my freshly cut log had a couple of days to dry out, but now it is surely soaked through. I have the feeling that this could be a dangerous time for my new project, so I will start drilling as soon as I am able.
Stamets suggests covering the ends of logs with cheese wax to prevent contamination. I think I'll be doing that too. The broken end of the log is kind of ragged looking so I think I should give it a shave, too. Nothing like little nooks and crannies of wet food to invite contamination! I tried using oyster plugs on a tree stump last year, but the spawn was overtaken by some other shelf-type fungus that looks like hairy, black ears. Yummy.
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"We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."
- T. S. Eliot
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dwpineal
Stranger
Registered: 07/20/06
Posts: 220
Last seen: 3 hours, 46 minutes
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Re: I have... a log. Suggestions? [Re: Paresthesia]
#8672168 - 07/23/08 02:40 PM (4 months, 7 days ago) |
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Yes cut the log so it has clean straight sides, you definitely don't want the jagged ones. Sealing wax is a must to keep in moisture and keep out invaders, though like you learned, sometimes, it's a harder battle than others...
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Paresthesia
Registered: 07/02/08
Posts: 428
Loc: Texas
Last seen: 59 minutes, 43 seconds
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Re: I have... a log. Suggestions? [Re: dwpineal]
#8691741 - 07/28/08 09:54 AM (4 months, 2 days ago) |
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The deed is done! Moisture loss is a big problem here, so I'll be setting it in a bed of wood chips with the remaining dowel spawn mixed in.
My once graceful, curved branch is now covered in elm oyster pox! I hope the appearance improves once it starts fruiting.
Will post pics when everything is in place.
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"We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."
- T. S. Eliot
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