Growing Hen of the Woods (aka Maitake) mushrooms on logs is a labor of love. We have worked extensively with inoculation trials to determine the most successful way to grow maitake, and it all comes down to pretreating your log rounds to make a suitable substrate for the maitake mushroom.
Hen of the Woods are grown on oak log sections that are typically around 8-10 inches in diameter by 8-10 inches tall. The size of the log is based on the need to do the aforementioned "pretreating". Maitake isn't a particularly strong fungal competitor so in order to successfully grow it, you need to give the maitake mycelium a headstart by attempting to remove any surface contaminants existing on the log rounds by either pressure cooking, steaming, or boiling the wood.
Pretreating log rounds for maitake cultivation.
What Pretreatment Method for Maitake Works Best?
Every year we prepare oak logs inoculated with Maitake spawn for spring planting. Typically logs are cut during the dormant season and then inoculated in March/April which gives them plenty of time for spawn to run through the logs before planting out by the end of June. Since they are cut in short pieces, the spawn run is fast, but how you pretreat your log rounds matter. This year we've prepared 4 tests- pressure cooking, steaming, boiling, and then a check log with no pretreatment at all.
1. Pressure Cooking: This method has always been the most successful for us. The log round was pressure cooked in an instant pot for 60 minutes on high pressure. The orange-white coating on the log is the maitake mycelium, showing full colonization without interference from any surface contamination. While this is the most effective for pretreating, you also are limited on your log size as it needs to fit into your pressure cooker.
2. Steaming: This method is almost equally effective, but takes significantly longer. We steamed this log round for 6 hours. While you are still limited by the size of your pot used for steaming, you can typically steam a larger sized log.
3. Boiling: This log was boiled for 1 hour. There is noticeably more surface contamination along the sides of the logs (note the green mold) however, there is still healthy spawn run on the cut-ends of the log. Since the ends of the logs serve as the main entry for the maitake mycelium, this log is still becoming colonized with maitake, and though it's a bit unsightly, it will grow successfully!
4. No Pretreatment: As a check, we inoculated one log without pretreating it at all. This method unfortunately remains ineffective. The dull brown of the spawn suggests that the mycelium has died and not moved into the log. At this time we still recommend pretreating logs for successful cultivation.
All of these logs will be buried in May or April. Typically maitake logs take two seasons of establishment before they start bearing mushrooms, but once they do they will continue to fruit for 8-10 years! For full instructions on how to cultivation Hen of the Woods, view our instruction sheet for Hen of the Woods on Logs.