Save Money By Growing Your Medicine: Starting A Maitake Mushroom Patch

The Japanese word "maitake" means "dancing mushroom" because people in ancient times were said to dance for joy when they found these mushrooms, which were literally worth their weight in silver. In North America it is called Hen of the Woods because its appearance looks like the ruffled feathers of a chicken.

Now, we will try our hand at growing the dancing mushroom.

Why Grow Maitake

Even Web MD touts the health benefits of Maitake mushrooms.

Maitake mushroom is used to treat cancer and also to relieve some of the side effects of chemical treatment (chemotherapy) for cancer. It is also used for HIV/AIDS, chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), hepatitis, hay fever, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, weight loss or control, and infertility due to a condition called polycystic ovary syndrome.

We had pretty good success with our Shiitake mushroom log culture inoculation last spring. Thus, I am hopeful that our temperate zone 7 climate will favor the maitake.

There is a good bit of money savings associated with good health.  Adding home grown mushrooms to your diet of other garden foods, saves money. If nothing else, that is another expense you have eliminated. If it is a pharmaceutical expense, then all the better. A lot of those chemicals they sell just make us dependent and weak due to side effects, and there is often a natural alternative that is just as good with fewer unintended consequences.

Procedures for Growing

It may be that the log culture used for growing shiitake will not work so well with maitake. My research indicates that the best culture for naturally growing maitake (and reishi) mushrooms is on decomposing oak stumps. We do not have any freshly cut stumps presently so we are trying log culture. 

First, I ordered some spawn from Mushroom Mountain in Liberty, South Carolina. The mycelia produced locally will give me a better chance of successfully growing this mushroom. As you can see from the picture above, the mycelia are contained in small dowels.  

About three weeks before the spawn arrived, I cut a large branch from my white oak tree, and cut it further into three three foot-long sections.  The log was between 5 - 8 inches in diameter.

Next, I used a drill to cut holes the same size as the dowels in a diamond pattern around the logs. The holes were about 4-5 inches apart. The idea is that the mycelium will spread throughout the wood and produce fruit next year or maybe two years from now.

I tapped the dowels into the holes and sealed the top with melted bees' wax.  It's rainy season here in western North Carolina. I set the logs against the north side of a large white oak. This should keep them protected from the sun and the prevailing wind. You want the logs to stay moist to promote growth of the maitake mycelium. 

The best practice is to bury the logs in sandy soil so that they will stay moist. I will probably do this later when I figure out where I would like to set up my maitake patch.