In article ,
Steve wrote:

In article ,
Philip Semanchuk wrote:
My alternative is to build an oyster fruiting box
that's got some sort of built-in humidifier, air exchanger and spore
filter. This also sounds like a lot of work but I think it will be
fairly reliable once I get the kinks worked out.

I know someone who has a similar setup. I think he's using sawdust for
the medium, but I'm not sure. I think he sterilizes the media before
innoculation, though, to prevent other fungi from growing.

Just FYI, Graham Family Farm at the Carrboro Farmer's Market will sell
for about $2.50 garbage bags of pure, clean maple shavings that strike
me as excellent oyster food. They make a lot of furniture and the maple
shavings are a byproduct that they usually use to feed their stove. They
sell bags of cedar shavings at the market (they make great cat litter)
but the maple ones you'd probably do well to ask for in advance. The
business card I have for them gives me Louis Graham at 542 4571 and Dan
at 542 5973. Nice people.


Are you growing your oysters shiitake style? By that I mean logs left
whole, cut to 3' length and then inoculated with dowel spawn?

Yes, it's a variation on that. I'm also growing shiitakes in the
traditional shiitake style, and have tried a few other species. The
shiitakes do well. The oysters have good production but yield is low
because of the beetle damage and short window for harvesting. Nothing
else has turned out too well yet.

I'm curious what else you've tried. I've only tried a couple of
Pleurotus sp. and shiitakes. The latter were in logs that I inoculated
in June 2005 and didn't really know how to fruit them until this spring
when I had great success with them. Only half of my logs fruited; I'm
waiting for some decent rain in the forecast so I can fruit the rest.

Cheers
--
Philip Semanchuk
email: first name @ last name.com