At the end of May I tried a force fruiting experiment with some small white oak shiitake logs from 2020. I was wondering if a “soaked” log will initiate fruiting in an “un-soaked” log.

May 22, 2022 - Four small white oak logs that I inoculated in 2020.

May 22, 2022 - I soaked two of the logs for about 6 hours in my wheel barrow. The water was from my rain barrel. It looks like I have more than two logs in my wheel barrow. That’s because I used some other nearby logs to weigh down the inoculated logs.

May 22, 2022 - I re-placed the soaked logs in my stacks. Each stack had one of the soaked logs.

By May 30, 2022 - I had some size-able shiitake on one of the stacks. Take note of that happy slug!

By June 2, 2022 both stacks had numerous shiitake mushrooms. Most of the mushrooms appeared on the soaked log. Some of these mushrooms are overly mature, too large!

Since both logs in each stack gave mushrooms even when I only soaked one of the logs in each stack, I wonder if the shiitake mycelium in the soaked logs are able to signal to the connected logs that it’s a good time to flush.

I wonder if I would get a more substantial flush if I soaked all four logs.

I am curious if these logs were ready to flush anyway even if I had not soaked them.

Next time I will soak just two of the logs from one of the stacks and none of the logs in the other stack. I also plan to soak them in the heat of the summer to see if they will fruit even when conditions are not favorable.

I welcome other folks who are willing to give this a try. Feel free to communicate your findings to the group.