The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

Propagating a shiitake mushroom for free: Success

Shiitake mushroom bud

According to some book that has since faded into obscurity in my memory, the traditional Japanese method of reproducing shiitake mushroom logs is simple. Just cut a fresh log and set it beneath the old...and the fungi will move down to colonize the new substrate.

I decided to try a slightly modified method of that technique with a mini log in April 2015. To streamline the spread of mycelium, I placed a wet sheet of corrugated cardboard between the fresh and colonized logs...and sure enough the white threads of fungi soon clambered on through.

Now, seventeen months later, there's finally a tiny mushroom budding on my never-plugged log! Yes, that's nearly a year later than the plugged logs fruited, proof that the traditional technique is slower, if no less sure. Still, given the simplicity of cut-it-and-touch-to-an-existing-log technique, it seems to merit a repeat on a slightly larger scale.



Anna Hess's books
Want more in-depth information? Browse through our books.

Or explore more posts by date or by subject.

About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.






profile counter myspace



Powered by Branchable Wiki Hosting.

Required disclosures:

As an Amazon Associate, I earn a few pennies every time you buy something using one of my affiliate links. Don't worry, though --- I only recommend products I thoroughly stand behind!

Also, this site has Google ads on it. Third party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on a user's prior visits to a website. Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to users based on their visit to various sites. You can opt out of personalized advertising by visiting this site.