MANSFIELD, Ohio – There’s a tradition by some who tramp through the woods in the spring in search of wild mushrooms. But what if we could cultivate them at home and sell them to a local grocery chain?

Those attempting to grow the highly sought after morel mushroom quickly learn that they’re finicky about temperature and moisture conditions, as well as the material they’re grown on. Simply put, they’re difficult to grow.

There is, however, another mushroom that is not hard to cultivate and can provide extra income to large or small producers – the shiitake.

Jeff Wilkinson, of Lexington, Ohio, has been growing shiitake mushrooms for 35 years. He will teach a session about this money-making fungi at the 2022 Small Farm Conference & Trade Show entitled “Sowing Seeds for Success.” The one-day gathering will be March 12 at Ohio State University Mansfield.

“Growing shiitake mushrooms is like growing any other perennial in your garden,” Wilkinson said. “There is a short period where very little is realized in terms of what you can see or pick. Therefore, it’s important to have patience when starting to cultivate shiitake mushrooms.”

Wilkinson is one of many presenters at the conference, which will include four presenters in each of eight sessions pertaining to horticulture, produce production, natural resources, livestock, specialty crops, farm management and marketing.

Shiitakes are highly prized in Japan, where about half of the world’s supply is produced. In 1987, roughly 15 years after being introduced in the United States, a gardener from Taiwan introduced Wilkinson to growing shiitake, and Wilkinson has been cultivating them ever since. One year he grew and marketed nearly 400 pounds of mushrooms, selling them at farmers’ markets and to several restaurants.

“It’s fun, but it’s like a dairy farm in that once you get going into it you have to be on them every day, either picking, soaking, covering, watering or spraying…and it all depends on the weather.”

According to Wilkinson, in Japan there are called the “mushroom of the shii,” or oak tree. They can be found growing wild. However, oak trees in North America will accept inoculation for growing shiitake, making it possible to grow them in our region.

Wilkinson does forestry consulting for a living. On the side he markets timber for landowners and whenever he spots white oak tops he works with those landowners to buy those logs, which are perfect for cultivating shiitake mushrooms.

There are a number of steps in preparing a log to grow mushrooms. Shiitake spawn won’t do well on live or green wood, so they need to be cultivated, rather than grown in deadfall wood or logs contaminated with other fungi. To help attendees get started in this mushroom process, he will provide kits. One kit will inoculate 10 logs four inches in diameter and 40 inches long.

Holes are drilled in each log to insert plugs containing mushroom mycelium (or mushroom root) that will colonize the log. Next, each plug is sealed with bees wax to keep moisture and insects out.

Then the logs are stacked “log cabin” style, off the ground, in a shady, protected area away from the sun and wind. Wilkinson says it’s important pick a spot that is out of the way because the logs must rest for 10 to 12 months while the mycelium from the plugs grows under the bark. It will colonize the log with shiitake spawn and will eventually mature to produce mushrooms.

According to Wilkinson, it’s necessary to use logs from freshly felled trees or just-trimmed limbs that haven’t been lying on the forest floor. They must have intact bark and be allowed to dry for approximately a year.

“A log will produce three crops per year, one each season during spring, summer and fall,” Wilkinson said. “The log will produce for about four years before needing to be replaced. Mushroom growers can acquire wood from tree trimmers or land owners.”

Once the logs have sat for a year, they are soaked in cold water for 24 hours and then hit on the end with a hammer several times to wake up the spawn and allow the fruiting stage to begin. During the fruiting stage, the logs are positioned at a 45-degree angle against a tree trunk or, in Wilkinson’s case, the boards of the mushroom arbor he constructed.

“That’s the fruiting stage, when they’re actually growing,” he said. “Some logs will be covered solid with mushrooms. Then, after the log fruits, it has to rest about three to four weeks for the mycelium to eat more of the lignin in the wood. After that it’ll reproduce again and grow mushrooms and I’ll get mushrooms four to five times a year off these logs.”

After each fruiting period, Wilkinson flips the logs to rest on the opposite end, which allows the spawn to run more evenly throughout the logs. Black landscaping cloth is used during extreme weather to cover the logs and provide better growing conditions for the mushrooms.

On hot and sunny or windy days the mushrooms can dry out, and when they near maturity, too much rain will saturate them making them harder to store.

“Depending on what the weather does, probably by the end of the month they’ll be done, unless we get a really warm spell,” he said. “It all depends on nature and the moisture. Ideal temperatures are 60 degrees at night with 70-75 degrees during the day.

“After winter when we get the spring rains, all these mushrooms will grow at once and I’ll have 50, 60 or 70 pounds of mushrooms at once. I can usually move 10 to 15, maybe 20 pounds a week, but any extra I dry for winter use.”

Participants at Wilkinson’s session will be able to see him prepare a log for growing shiitake. He will discuss foraging for wild mushrooms, as well as preserving and cooking with mushrooms.

“This way people can see if they like the process or even like the mushrooms,” he said.

Many attendees of this show who are interested in growing mushrooms see this venture as a lucrative specialty crop that seems profitable.

“If someone is raising these mushrooms commercially or to sell them at a farmers market they need to realize it takes a year to get started and get them colonized,” said Wilkinson, who tends to 1,500 logs annually. “I just keep rotating them. I eventually grow about 15 to 20 pounds per week.”

Wilkinson’s specialty crop of mushrooms is just one of 32 sessions. Other topics include Starting and Managing an Orchard, Growing and Selling Cut Flowers, Maple Syrup Production, Growing Hops, Growing Ginseng, Invasive Pests in Fruit Production, and Landscaping for Wildlife.

For more information on registration, sessions and more go to https://go.osu.edu/osufarmconference2022.