Thinking about changing from logs to 5 gallon buckets using hardwood pellets for Oyster and Shiitake. Has anyone tried pellet buckets that can lend some advice? You get several years out of the logs, but what about pellet buckets? Are the pellet buckets worthwhile or is better to stick with logs?
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I’ve never tried buckets but have had good success with (1) shiitakes on oak logs, and (2) shiitakes and oysters (among others) in bags of sawdust, where the sawdust comes from wet mashed pellets. I’m very interested to see what people say. Meanwhile, my two comments:
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Growing mushrooms in bags normally involved lots of effort sterilizing the medium to eliminate competing organisms and maintaining those sterile conditions during inoculation. Failure usually results from infestation of various molds. You’re talking about a non-sterile medium and open-air inoculation, where competing infestations are guaranteed. Oysters might be fast and tough enough to fend off this competition but I’m not so sure abut shiitake.
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I’ve read that shiitake requires more nitrogen than is supplied by most wood chips, so I mixed in coffee grounds. Of course, these had to be sterilized as part of the mix. The double-edged sword is that this added nitrogen might encourage the competition. I don’t know.
Good luck. I hope you make it work.
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Ive done them both ways. the buckets don’t last as long but are easier to manage. can also stack them. no experience on doing shiitake in buckets. make sure the pellets are pure hardwood. many are mixed with softwood. they don’t do as well on those.
How long do the buckets last? The stacking and keeping them away from animals is why I’m interested in it. With the logs woodpeckers got a lot of the spawn, then the animals started coming for the finished product.
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@steveb4 – What’s your method. I get pure hardwood pellets. Do you sterilize at all? How do you inoculate? What types of mushrooms?
I have only done logs using dowels. For example, a couple weeks ago I inserted 1000 birch dowels inoculated with shiitake into white oak logs. The only issue I’ve had with pests is that deer ate my entire crop last Sept the evening before I was planning to pick them. Probably 300 shrooms. That had never happened before. So I just erected a fence around them.
sterilize them using boiling water to hydrate them in a sealed, sterilized tote. once they cool down add your spawn in, stirring it evenly into your substrate with gloved sterilized hands. replace your cover. drill 1/2in. holes about 4in apart all around your bucket. none on top or bottom. sterilize your bucket, the add a small garbage bag. resterilize your hands. then scoop your substrate into your garbage bag, lifting the sides and shaking it so the substrate settles with no air pockets. once full tie the bag after firming down the substrate and removing any air. place on the lid. put in a warmish place for i think 6 weeks. after that take a knife and pierce the bag at each hole then place the bucket in a cool, moist shaded spot and wait. i used lysol spray to sterilize but alcohol or diluted bleach can also be used. plenty of tutorials on the mushroom websites showing how to do this. check with them as im not absolutely sure of the establishment times and how long a bucket produces . its been quite a while since ive done this. i think i got 2 big flushes. one in the mid summer and 1 the fall before it was spent. also for about 3 xs you can use the spent substrate to start a new one, if you make a new one right after the fall flush. throw it outside and it will establish over winter and flush in spring when it warms. or you can do the cycle and let it flush indoors. i put a white garbage bag loosely over the pail and mist water over the outside of the pail daily to keep humidity up after piercing the holes. good luck!
I’ve had trouble managing buckets for oysters, primarily with trichoderma competition on cardboard substrates. While shiitake logs take effort to set up (I’ve had great luck using oak and sawdust spawn), they bear for years and have been pretty much maintenance free for me.
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That’s what I have been doing as well. Problem I’m having is the woodpeckers steal about half the spawn then the animal fight. I would need to keep them in a netted cage to stop everybody. Sounds like the buckets are only good for one year though. That’s too much hassle compared to several years of the logs.
I may still try a few just to see how well it works for myself. They advise against it, but I will also try using the spent medium to start more.
I don’t even think buckets are going to give you year of harvest.
Based on my understanding (youtube), you get one big flush after few weeks and maybe another smaller flush afterwards. Then that’s it. You use the remains of the bucket as spawn for next batch.
One thing I don’t like about buckets is the source of the wooden pellet. With logs, I know where it came from. With pellets, I have no idea.
Same here. As an example, it took me roughly 8-10 hours to inoculate logs with 1000 dowels, but they will bear for 3-5 years. I generally try for 2 flushes spring and fall. I can manage the timing by soaking the logs (all ~24-36") in a barrel of water. I end up drying a lot of the crop.