TOPIC: Cultivating hens

I was wondering if anyone has had any luck inoculating oaks with hen spore plugs.I got 1000 coming and I am going to give it a try with some live trees and see what happens.If you have tried this before and found out later it was a mistake please let me know what happened.

Wise1,
I have not tried the plugs yet and I wish you the best. I have seen videos where it works but may take a while for them to work.

I have taken dried mitake powder I made and even rubbed fresh mitake at the base of other oaks with the hope of spreading the spores to the other oaks near by. So far I have had no luck.

However, I have taken Morel spore water (Unsalted rinse water) out of the sink after washing my morel mushrooms and poured the water on various trees. We got morel mushrooms to sprout 3 years later under an apple tree that never had morel mushrooms before.
So the mitake should work to IMHO.

The videos I saw were when guys were drilling holes in oak logs and hammering in mitake dowel plugs. Then they capped the plug with wax.

It should work on live oaks I would think. I wonder if you have to cap the plug???
Good luck,
Latt

Yeah you have to cap the plug so other fungus cant enter and compete with the hen fungus.I have grew shitake on logs and had that problem.I just wonder if the live trees will kill out the spores. The wild hens I found around here were close to live trees.But from what I have read they all do it on cutt logs then burry part of them.I guess I just spend a couple hundred bucks and pray it works.I have done the trick with morels also.They still aren't up here yet to many cold nights I recon.

Yeah you have to cap the plug so other fungus cant enter and compete with the hen fungus.I have grew shitake on logs and had that problem.I just wonder if the live trees will kill out the spores. The wild hens I found around here were close to live trees.But from what I have read they all do it on cutt logs then burry part of them.I guess I just spend a couple hundred bucks and pray it works.I have done the trick with morels also.They still aren't up here yet to many cold nights I recon.

Most trees will have the ability to fight the mycelium even for a couple weeks after cut down from what ive read about it. I inoculated several shiitake logs last year and when I was researching it most people suggested letting the log sit for 3-4 weeks before drilling and inserting the dowels.

Could be different for hens tho.

Best of luck,

John B

I have growen hens indoors and on logs. When you plug your logs you do not have to wax plug spot. I use wood in the red oak family with the black oak being the best choice. The hen has a very long mycelium run and with fresh logs your looking at a three year wait. The best results I've had is when I bury the logs completely with about 6 inch of dirt. Retaining moisture is the key with the mycelium (spawn run). Check out pashroomin.com Best of luck.

Cut your logs about 3ft and try to use the ones that are from 6-8 inches round. When you plug a log this size you would use about 40 plugs per log. Drill your holes about 4 inches apart and stagger your holes. Soak the logs or wet them well, lay them in a forest edge setting with that mixed lighting and shading effect. Dig a nice bed and lay the logs flat and bury them using the dirt from the hole to about 6inches of coverage. You will have great results!!!!

Thanks for the advise.This is mainly a experiment,to start with I was going to inoculate 4 living trees,now I have found one dead tree,and one partially dead tree and one live tree.I am going to try my luck with each of those and also do some half buried logs.I have found most of my hens near living trees that appear to be healthy.It may be the strain that grows around here .I plan on collecting spores this fall from one I find often and try to make some plugs from it.I was shooting for two years however it may take three or four.I have lots of beeswax I saved from my honey bees so I will wax my inoculating holes just in case.guess I will order 1000 more plugs on payday.lol I can find more ways to waste money.

Grifola Frondosa (Hen of the woods) is a white rot fungus, It is what we call a saprophyte exploiting tree tissue dying from other causes. I also pick a large % of my hens from standing trees, but they are not healthy. If you look close at those trees you will see stress, most of the time it is heart rot. You would want to avoid drilling and plugging healthy oak trees. Also a stump or a tree that is not fresh cut most likely has been hit with a saprophyte fungus and not knowing which one I would avoid also. I got bees also and that wax could be used for better projects.LOL.. I have plugged thousands of logs ranging from shittake, lions mane, many strains of oysters, reishi and other wood lovers and never had a contam issue. Moisture is the key, keep those logs in a forest edge setting with that mixed light. I wish you the best of luck with your hen journey.

Tran,
Always good to hear from you. Thanks for sharing your knowledge on here. I am going to attempt to plug some logs too someday soon with many different types of mushrooms as you had mentioned \"ranging from shittake, lions mane, many strains of oysters, reishi\".
Thanks for the tips on the placing of the logs on the woods edge with mixed light.

PS. Good luck too Wise1.

Latt