Establishing Natural Controls of Competitive Fungi in the Production of Shiitake Mushrooms

Growing shiitake mushrooms has been a challenge. I have learned to be alert, pay attention to the conditions of the logs from the first stage of inoculation to fruiting the log, storing the log in the resting stage. I have learned that keeping records of fruiting times and amounts will help you make growing choices, keeping track of labor hours and expenses will help you to determine a fair market value. Keeping an activity log book will help you remember small changes that you might make along the way that you can reflect on in good and bad times, what environmental conditions were like when production was at its best, and help you determine the amount of logs you might want to force fruit to meet production requirements. The results were helpful and supplied enough information to help me design a plan of action, a plan that can help make shiitake farming a success.