I just helped to inoculate 100 logs with Shiitake Mushrooms for the SARE research program: “Shiitake Mushrooms as a Farm and Forest Enterprise”.
The program starts with introductory workshops teaching log-based sustainable Shiitake mushroom cultivation, harvest, and marketing. Selected participants are supplied with spawn “mushroom culture” and the research begins.
The work: drill specifically spaced rows around freshly cut log, inoculate them with spawn, seal them with wax and stack them in piles or lean them. The humidity and the exposure of the logs must be managed through the seasons. The logs are shocked (into fruiting) by submerging them in cold water for 24 hours. I believe you see your first mushroom in 6+ months. The yields have many variables, a “large” and dense, well managed log will fruit twice a year for 4+ years.
Vermont Shiitake farming in the Mad River Valley at the Dana Forest Farm .
more information on Shiitake as a viable food crop – http://www.mushroomcompany.com/resources/shiitake/shiitake.shtml
VT 4 Evolution 