Possibly the easiest mushroom to grow on logs, the Turkey Tail mushroom has longstanding traditional use in Asia, over the last 4o years concentrated polysaccharide extracts have become one of the most widely used immune mdoulating drugs. It is sold dried as a medicinal mushroom for making water based extracts and has become increasingly popular in the UK over the last few years.
Substrate:
Most hardwood logs can be used to grow Turkey Tail but with varying degrees of productivity. We recommend birch as this is a common speices with otherwise little commercial value but any hardwood speices will work. Unfortunately willow performs quite poorly. Any size log can be used from 5cm or more in diameter.
Inoculation:
Logs are ideally inoculated one week after of having been cut and before 4 weeks but up to 8 weeks is possible with this species. The process of inoculation involves drilling 12mm drill holes, and then filing these holes with sawdust spawn. With Turkey Tail it is not necessary to seal the holes with wax so long as the inoculated logs can be kepts from drying out. One person can inoculate around 20 logs per hour using this technique without the needs for wax. Once inoculated the logs are left in a sheltered area for up to 12 months before they can be fruited. The smaller diamter logs can begin fruiting after 6 months.
Fruiting:
Once the logs are fully colonised they can be rested at a 45 degree angle ussing trees or a fence line, in a sheltered area, with one end in moist ground. Fruitbodies will start to appear in late summer and be ready to harvest in 3-4 weeks depending on weather conditions.
Cropping Cycle:
You can only expect 2-3 flushes from the inoculated log. If inoculating 100 logs per year a 200 log cropping cycle by year 3 allows for a reasonable degree of predictability.
Harvest:
The fruitbodies are torn from the log and dried. Once dried they need to be frozen, thawed and frozen again over a period of 74hours.
Propagation:
Sawdust spawn has to be made at least 4 weeks prior to innoculation. This can be produced easily using grain spawn to inoculate hydrated woodpellets.