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Offlinekotter
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Registered: 01/15/11
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shiitake on logs; two questions and some comments on high-speed drills
    #14252228 - 04/07/11 09:42 AM (12 years, 10 months ago)

Does anyone out there still grow shiitakes on logs?

I've run into some questions I've been puzzling over.
The literature suggests a cheese wax with a hot melting point so as to be more durable over time yet most fungi supplier sell a clear paraffin based cheese wax with a melting point of 140F. I've been using it and it works but was wondering what other people's experience was.
Also I'd love to hear about what people use for wax applicators. I started out with a 1" wide paint brush which worked fine but proved to be very wasteful and fairly shortlived, then started using a homemade one modeled after something I saw a Japanese shiitake grower using made out of a dowel wired with a ball of some steel scrubber sponge on one end. Way better than a brush but still really sloppy and wasteful. The little throw-away daubers sold for this do work but waxing thousands of holes with one of those is a bit interesting.
A turkey baster with and without a partial nail works fine up for me until wax starts cooling and building up inside of it or the bulb.  Then its a time consuming pain to clean and keep clean. 
My best results for good application and controlling waste have though been with a turkey baster lacking any insert and used slowly and carefully (and avoiding sucking wax into the bulb or lying it on its side) but I'm still going through easily two or three times more wax than is suggested as needed with much of it slopped onto my plugging table.
Does anyone have any tips or suggestions on wax application?

I also decided to go ahead and obtain a highspeed shiitake drill from Hitachi in Japan.
Wow does that thing work great!
It does not drill any faster than my highspeed side grinder but is better designed for use with one hand with a D-handle and the power switch located on the handgrip itself.  Its light and really easy to use. The built in stop is a sweet idea but I found its chuck size was too small for the highspeed bits there were on-hand so I ended up using a bit with a welded stop on it anyway.
The side grinder is a Makita with an attachment from Field & Forest. Its not as comfortable to operate as the Hitachi but it is easy enough to use, plus it is just as fast and costs half the price.
If anyone is still using a regular drill (cordless or corded) for drilling shiitake logs I'd suggest abandoning that approach and going with a high speed drill. The difference in time and labor is incredible. Touch the log with the tool and the hole is completed. I thought I should do some comparative time trials just for grins but have not done so yet.
I'm happy to have both drills on hand (along with the cordless & corded DeWalts as backups) but wanted to share that observation if someone is wondering about the Hitachi. If a person appreciates using a really well designed tool I would imagine they'd really love it (I know I do) but the Makita seems to me like a better bargain for simple functionality balanced with price. 
Its downsides are being a bit clumsy in use compared to the Hitachi, requiring two hands to shut off and having the adaptor and drillbit presented at 90 degrees to the drill body making it fairly easy to damage the bit and drill itself if not careful. Compared to a regular drill, the sidegrinder makes them seem as almost primitive.
Only time with tell how long they both hold up to use or abuse.


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Invisiblesolarity
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Re: shiitake on logs; two questions and some comments on high-speed drills [Re: kotter]
    #14253272 - 04/07/11 01:49 PM (12 years, 10 months ago)

I thought commercial log cultivators now use sheets of sawdust spawn plugs on a styrofoam disk, push it in and it self seals? No wax and half the time?


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OfflineRogerRabbitM
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Re: shiitake on logs; two questions and some comments on high-speed drills [Re: solarity]
    #14253870 - 04/07/11 03:34 PM (12 years, 10 months ago)

I can't imagine wasting all the time it takes to drill and plug logs to grow such a tiny amount of shiitake.  It works OK in the third world where people consider $200/month a good salary, but in the U.S., you'd go broke trying to use logs for more than a hobby grow.  You only get around 9% B.E. with logs over a 5 year period, as opposed to over 100% B.E. over a three month period with sawdust blocks.  If your idea is to generate income, forget logs.

In addition, with logs all the product comes at one time, right when every other log grower is also harvesting, thus the price drops and/or you can't sell what you've worked so hard to produce.
RR


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Offlinekotter
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Re: shiitake on logs; two questions and some comments on high-speed drills [Re: RogerRabbit]
    #14255831 - 04/07/11 09:34 PM (12 years, 10 months ago)

Thanks for all that.
Don't get me wrong Solarity and RR, I certainly do greatly appreciate your kindness in trying to discourage me and lead me to something more cost effective and lucrative instead of wasting time and money on sawdust spawn inoculation of logs. I don't disagree with the sentiments expressed but that was not what I am looking for in this instance.

I've recently moved to growing shiitakes in spawn bags for the very reasons RR alludes to but hope I don't stop growing in logs until I am no longer able physically.
The mushrooms they produce have been consistently abundant enough that even at my most pessimistic reckoning of high labor and low production it would still work out far cheaper than buying them at wholesale to eat (all labor factored in at something fair in the US not an underdeveloped third world nation). Not quite grounds for any commercial venture of course but that isn't my lens here.  Nor is competing with bags since log production simply can't in terms of volume of crop or efficiency of bioconversion. As RR also pointed out.
My understanding is even China prefers bags for commercial shiitake production.

Even so there is imho a quality about the texture and taste and aroma of mushrooms I grow on logs that I've yet to find in a commercial one (which I believe probably almost all now come from bags?), maybe this is simply due to freshness?  Its apparently a commonly encounterable belief among Japanese shiitake growers that log grown shiitakes are considered by them to be superior in quality but I still lack direct firsthand knowledge since I presently may not be comparing apples to oranges but I'm certainly comparing different apples so can't make a fair comparison.
I should know for myself within the coming years just as soon as I can directly compare the same mushrooms grown both ways starting from a pure culture and trying this with several strains.

As for spawn bag culture, I AM really looking forward to my first ones fruiting. Colonization of a sawdust/wood chip/wheat bran mix in gusseted bags with a filter patch has been moving really nicely along.
The time lag is among the biggest downsides of logs compared to bags so I look forward to having both in my life now.

For me its less the drilling and plugging of logs that eats up so much time and energy than it is caring for the logs while incubating, moving them around for nice fruiting and monitoring soaking them or controlling them from getting wet. Avoiding having fruiting happen when you do not want it to can be a really important thing. Not just for impacting marketability and prices in the market but for ensuring continued good productivity of the logs.
If they could be done and ricked up wherever they fall it would be simpler but that is not an option here.
I find drilling itself to actually be a rather low-labor if not an easy breeze when using a high speed drill.  It was perceived by me to be a major chore only while I still used a regular drill.
Logs are not something I'd try to do as a commercial venture since I'm no youngster and can't always depend on my back to reliably hold out. Farming anything has to happen when the crop dictates so I have to always factor that into anything I plan. 
Still, the land movement in the forest and our needs cause a number of 100 foot (often thin and straight) tanoaks to come down almost every year. These can become firewood, wood chips or forest floor. Or I can try to turn as many as possible into shiitakes. What usually matters most is that they are removed from where they are so in reality all of the above happens.
Going out and cutting up trees just for plugging would be another story as that would add up to a bit of time and labor taking them down and breaking them up.  I've got a nice chainsaw but my time of cutting down any trees is past if it is not an emergency situation. Now I have other people take them down now. As those trees are already being cut up for the sake of some other reason there is hardly any if any additional cost to specify 40 inch sections be stacked together when the trees are clean and the right size.

I've not used those styrofoam backed plugs but have found sawdust spawn to go way faster and easier than dowels although both have been nicely productive for me. I like sawdust spawn in that I can make it myself and work with things I've found does well here whereas those strips would mean something to buy it new with each new lot of logs. Perfect for a large commercial log plugging operation no doubt since all of their raw materials including logs will likely be purchased by them for use and anything aiding in consistency of materials and application will be of immense use in aiding profits by lessening labor. I've read there are commercial dispensing guns to further speed up applying them.
I've also heard their advantage is in cost not performance as the styrofoam seals don't hold up so well as waxed plugs. I only know what I've read about them though and nothing first hand. If I had enough around for some logs I'd not doubt try some but think I have plenty on my plate to deal with as is.

So I guess my question on wax still remains in hopes of someone answering it?


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Offlineebruckner
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Re: shiitake on logs; two questions and some comments on high-speed drills [Re: kotter]
    #17607603 - 01/25/13 08:03 AM (11 years, 24 days ago)

The high-speed drill bit on my angle grinder was the best investment I've made yet!  Incredibly fast.  I can drill up an entire log (50 or so holes) in about 1-1/2 minutes.


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Offlinekotter
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Re: shiitake on logs; two questions and some comments on high-speed drills [Re: ebruckner]
    #17634158 - 01/30/13 09:53 AM (11 years, 19 days ago)

Yeah, I'd say that is true for me too. I've got the japanese version and the angle grinder and while the japanese drill is an ergonomic joy to use with one hand I notice that I use the angle grinder far more often. Field and Forest shows a plugging operation where one driller is keeping two pluggers busy. I suspect that several times that many people could be kept busy plugging the output of one person drilling.
I love doing mushrooms in logs. I understand the complaints leveled by RR that the initial labor is higher and the return is lower but they sure are a nice and passive long-term addition to bags. I've been getting 5-7 years of production life for logs. 
I just completed plugging a stack of tan-oak and curly maple with lion's mane and with reishi. Another stack is ready to go for more shiitake.
I've been told that tan-oak is facing probable extinction in coming years due to the impact of Phytophthora ramorum so it sure seems like a good use for that wood.


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