Wednesday, December 09, 2009


HIRATAKE


I now have enough inoculated shiitake logs to supply me with those exquisite fresh mushrooms for the foreseeable future, so I decided to try something a bit more difficult, the silvery Japanese mushroom hiratake (a variety of oyster mushroom - Pleurotus ostreatus). Like shiitake, hiratake goes well with just about everything, but it has different subtleties of flavor and texture. It is also a valued as a medicinal mushroom.

I've seen folks try to grow it on tv programs, and it appears to be rather fussy, but I thought I'd give it a try anyway-- I've got some nice rice straw to store the inoculated logs on and under, over there by the new cord of wood out of the wind and sun.

So over the weekend I got some hiratake spawn dowels and on Monday sectioned some 20 cm diameter oak logs I felled a few weeks ago into about 30 cm lengths, then today drilled them all over, inoculated them and stored them on a mat of rice straw over by the firewood, covered them with more rice straw and fallen leaves,and watered the pile with the hose for quite a while.

Will post again when there are results, however it goes...

Further info:

On Japanese mushrooms

International hiratake spawn source+instructions (looks like a slightly different variety than the one I just started)

Detailed info on hiratake as 'gourmet' mushroom

Helpful site on wild mushrooms of Japan

4 comments:

Shirley Sunman said...

:-)

Apprentice said...

I have no clue as to when the best time to do this would be - but I would not guess that December would be the time to do this... when do you expect the fruits of your labor to bare...fruit?

Tabor said...

So nice. I took a photo of fungus today that looked absolutely edible...gives you a clue how close I get to real shitake.

Robert Brady said...

Apprentice - now is the time, when the fresh-cut (within 4 weeks after cutting) wood is low in sap (I assume is the reason; could be the temp, but then why the 4 wks?). Near as I can tell, the first flush might be in the Spring, or next Fall, maybe even later (shiitake take a couple of years) depending on various factors; plus, being out here in the thick of things, there's a lot of fungal competition... I'll post on the results when they're manifest, whichever way it goes... It's all a learning process anyway, plus I don't have a clue whether monkeys like hiratake...

Tabor - I didn't see that wild mushroom photo on yr website... you may be passing up a gourmet experience...