You were expecting your first crop of mushrooms in spring. Spring came and went with nary a mushroom to be seen and you thought "well SURELY sometime this summer I'll see mushrooms". And now that summer is approaching its end you may be starting to think "WHEN will these start producing?!". We've all been there. Here are some things we here at Field & Forest Products like to keep in mind when it comes to mushroom production.
Log Size
Larger logs will take longer to produce than smaller logs. If you inoculated logs over 6 inches in diameter, they're going to take longer to produce as there is more material the mycelium needs to work through. As an aside, the same goes for mushroom bed depth- the deeper the wood chip or straw layer for a bed, the longer it will take to get mushrooms.
Back to logs. We estimate (estimate being the key word here- nature cannot be nicely boxed into a schedule) that it will take approximately 12 months from planting to fruiting with a 6-inch diameter log. However, if you're planting a 12-inch diameter log, budget a few extra months.
Strain Variety
Certain strains, such as Snow Cap or Bellwether shiitake, are slower than others. These varieties can take up to 18 months while West Wind or WR46 shiitake can fruit exceptionally fast! On a similar note, there is time difference between using plug spawn and sawdust spawn. Sawdust spawn produces mushrooms approximately 30% faster than plug spawn.
Seasonal Temperatures and Weather Patterns
This is the main cause for mushrooms to be shy. Say you planted an All-Season shiitake variety (such as WR46) in Spring of 2025. Usually this would yield it's first crop in Spring of 2026, but yours didn't... so what happened? This year we've had an uncommonly dry (and hot!) spring and summer. If you experienced this as well, the ideal fruiting conditions for your shiitake were likely skipped over as the temperatures rose too fast without any rain event. Silver lining? Those logs are itching to fruit- we just need to wait for regular drops in temperatures and rain.
A good way to check your logs to see if they're still healthy is to actually look under the bark. Try peeling some bark back from the ends of your logs and you should notice one of two things.
What you want to notice is that the bark is difficult to peel away and is well adheared to the wood underneath. When you are able to chip it away, the wood underneath should be a bright white-tan. That color indicates healthy mycelium just awaiting ideal fruiting conditions!
What you don't want to notice is the opposite of the above scenario. If the bark peels easily away and the wood underneath is dark brown color it incidates that the log at some point before the mycelium could take hold either dried out or that another fungal organism entered the log before inoculation took place. Hence the importance of using freshly cut, healthy logs! It's never a fun experience to wait a year only to find that the logs were dead before you could begin.
In a nutshell, growing mushrooms on logs is a patience game. While following best practices such as sourcing healthly logs, regular watering, and proper storage will help ensure a robust mushroom crop, ultimately, we're at the whims of mother nature.