Log Cultivated Forest Grown Shiitake

Our log-cultivated, forest-grown Shiitake mushrooms are available during the spring, summer, and fall months.  The logs are inoculated in the winter time, then left to sit or cultivate in the forest for 1 full year in this climate.  Then after it is production time around 15May they are integrated into rotation of force fruiting or natural fruiting if it is cold weather spawn.  The force fruiting consists of shocking the logs by immersing the logs under cold water for 24-48hrs.  After that time they will flush within 2 weeks.  After a log has flushed it needs a rest for 7 weeks hence why I have a 7 week rotation of logs for full production in the summer with my 1000 Log Farm.

This is my laying yard in production.  The logs are stacked with at most 25 logs per stack.  These stacks are organized by rotation.  I have a 7-week rotation and I fruit 2xs per week to spread the flushes and not kill my back.  This is what part of a 1k log shiitake production farm looks like.

This is where the logs go from the laying yard to be force fruited.  My setup is a little bit different now but I'll update the picture soon.  This is how the process of force fruiting happens.  You must submerge the logs in cool water for 24-48hrs.  This action cools the logs down and deprives them of oxygen.  After they are shocked they are moved to the fruiting yard as you can see in the very first picture on this page.  You should get a flush within 2 weeks.  I now use cinder blocks to maintain the logs from floating and I use shade cloth so the cool water stays cooler longer

Some logs are cold weather spawn and don't move too much from where I set them after inoculation.  These logs only produce when conditions are right normally in the spring and fall seasons.  This is a picture of a couple of those types of logs after fruiting.

We sometimes then produce dried Shiitake.  These dried shiitakes are dried in the sun with gills up so they can soak up to 200% more vitamin D when compared to regular dehydrator-dried produce.  We de-stem the mushrooms also before drying as this makes them easier to cook with.  These are then packaged for your convenience to use during any time of year.