Forest-Cultivated Mushroom Production for Pacific Northwest Diversified Farms and Startups

E1) At least 14 PNW growers have initiated shiitake production systems on their farms since this project began; 13 of these growers are directly involved in the project as of 2024. One of the original listed participating growers opted out of the project entirely, and two other growers opted to delay implementation. Three additional growers were recruited into the project (two near southwest WA and another in the Oregon Coast Range) in 2023 and implemented systems that year. One other grower also became proximally involved in 2023 (attended a workshop and implemented a production system, but have not been involved directly). One of the growers who initially delayed implementation in 2023 began in 2024, but the other grower who delayed in 2023 also delayed in 2024. A new grower was also recruited into the project in 2024, the NW WA region and implemented a production system the same year. Two other new growers are planning to implement a production system in 2025. Five farms opted to attend a full-day training in Vancouver, WA in January 2023; one farm additionally brought two employees who were interested in starting their own shiitake business. A total of 11 individuals were in attendance plus four Extension team members (who had an additional training the previous day as part of E3). Otherwise, the project mentors together have made at least 17 individual visits to participating farms for consulting and mentorship.

Another full-day training was offered to the participating growers in June in Vancouver, but only one farm ultimately ended up attending. Another three individual trainings were given in Vancouver in 2024 for two new growers and one that had missed the 2023 training. Otherwise the Extension team periodically checks-in with participating growers via email, text, or phone in the meantime.

Producer interviews were conducted throughout winter-spring 2024. In general growers chose to begin with 25-100 logs as a starting size for their production system, with most opting for a target of around 50 logs. Growers largely chose to keep their systems limited to shiitake and strains that had be previously tested by WSU, per guidance provided from Extension (one farm chose to experiment with oyster mushrooms). Most chose advisable substrate species per WSU research, with most choosing red alder and at least one farm choosing to add common hazel (advisable), garry oak (advisable), and wild sweet cherry (moderately advisable) and another choosing to add some bigleaf maple (largely unadvisable) and Oregon ash (viability doubtful, but locally accessible). They also largely chose to adhere to the production practices developed by WSU. In some instances a few growers chose to improvise alternatives from some of the advised standard production equipment, mostly to avert financial burdens. To date, the most common aversion to the WSU-advised production components as reported by growers has been the purchase of tanks used to soak the logs, as this is the largest single financial investment into a forest-cultivated shiitake production system. A few growers suggested that a public “equipment library” of sorts would be a useful way for them to try out a given piece of equipment for a given season, and decide if they want to invest further. A second notable report from growers was when they had people source logs for them, they weren’t listened to with regard to the requested log size, and that the logs’ bark needed to be undamaged. Multiple growers reported that over-sized logs with abundant bark damage were delivered. This was similar to some past experiences that some of the Extension team experienced as well. A tendency to over-size logs was reported by other growers that had cut their own timber as well. There was also some “reality check” moments reported by some growers regarding whether they would be able to meet their start-up production size goals with respect to labor burden, learning curve, balanced with real-time life circumstances. Several growers accordingly lowered their target size from their initial goals.

Most growers so far considered their first year as successful; two growers considered their first year as compromised in some way. One of these growers felt overcommitted to winter projects which compromised their time and energy, while the other experienced several challenges including having to move their production site due to a land rental agreement change, trouble sourcing timber, being short of capital for equipment due to circumstances, and trouble with animal damage to their shiitake bolts. Growers that generally felt successful in year one largely were farms that didn't have significant overwinter farm projects or extended-season production that conflicted with the labor demand timing for setting up a forest-cultivated shiitake production system. Several of these growers stressed that getting the shiitake work done earlier was favorable to keeping it from conflicting with other farm work in spring, and several of these growers also remarked that they enjoyed the nature of the work (e.g. working in the forest, a welcome change from their typical farm work etc.). Many growers also recruited family members or community volunteers to help out with the inoculation process, which inadvertently became an educational experience for those helping out; at least one grower mentioned wanting hold workshops in the future as part of their business model. Most growers also opted to refrain from inoculating more shiitake logs in 2024, citing that they wanted to see how the production from the previous year's bolts went before investing further. There was general anxiety expressed by many of the growers about the spawn run year and the delayed reward of having to wait for the first year of shiitake production. Growers also largely expressed that their shiitake production system was not only focused on the sheer profit margin of the mushrooms, but also that there was other value including increasing the diversity of crops they could offer to their markets, and being able to utilize their woodlands to increase overall farm income. 

E2) The concept of a PNW forest-cultivated mushroom grower’s network was introduced to the participating producers via the January training in Vancouver and otherwise through emails. This includes development of a network website (www.pnwforestmushroomgrowers.net; also part of E6), and a shared google drive folder for sharing resources as they are developed. A contact list was also shared with each of the growers to encourage peer-to-peer community support. There was at least a degree of resource-sharing amongst them as well to reduce financial burden and support one another (mostly bulk-purchasing of supplies) as a result of this. Growers generally found it difficult to coordinate with other growers, though still maintained that there may still be benefits.

E3) All Extension team members and Key Collaborator Kawai attended a full-day orientation and training in Vancouver on January 30, 2022 that was led by PI O’Dea. The day included orientation to the past and current FCM research in Vancouver, and to the PNW-oriented production practices developed via PI O’Dea and Co-PI Shults’s research to date. Co-PI Jones and Co-PI Shults participated in site visits with growers in their respective regions along with PI O’Dea in spring of 2023. This co-mentoring process was used to calibrate a common Extension approach to mentoring growers utilizing the set of production guidance materials drafted by PI O’Dea on forest-cultivated shiitake production systems. This also provided the Extension team with an opportunity to review the production materials in a real-time context. The materials were also used to outline a set of uniform practices for Co-PI Jones and Shults to use in establishment of their respective regional trials, giving them a first-hand user opportunity to review the draft guidance materials. Co-PI Shults also facilitated new connections and potential collaborations on strain development (via connections made in Japan, E4) with Field and Forest Products, the largest North American producer and retailer of spawn and equipment for forest-cultivated shiitake production. Similarly, Co-PI Jones facilitated new connections and potential collaborations with the only other US producer retailing multiple strains of spawn for forest-cultivated shiitake production, Northwest Mycological Consultants.

E4) A 10-day visiting scholar tour of select shiitake production, processing, and research sites in Japan was organized through critical efforts made by key collaborator Kawai throughout the first half of 2023. The tour occurred between July 27^th- August 6^th, 2023 and occured in several locations in Oita, Miyazaki, Kumamoto (on the southerly island of Kyushu), and Hokkaido (on the northerly island of Hokkaido) prefectures in Japan. In addition to Key Collaborator Kawai, PI O'Dea and Co-PIs Shults and Jones participated in the tour. Co-PI Zobrist was unable to attend the tour due to unanticipated time constraints. The team documented the tour through video and photography for dissemination throughout the remainder of the project and thereafter. The tour consisted of meetings with researchers at three different government-run research stations (Oita, Miyazaki, Hokkaido), meetings with three different industry groups (Kumamoto, Miyazaki, Tokyo), and seven farm visits with shiitake growers (2 in Oita, 3 in Miyazaki, 1 in Kumamoto, and 1 in Hokkaido). The tour of Japan provided the researcher/mentor team with novel insights (some mentioned in R5) on shiitake production and forest-cultivated mushrooms in general. It also helped affirm that our research and methods developed for the PNW were generally on-point and appropriately innovative.

Although Japan is the pre-eminent country producing shiitake on logs at commodity-scale levels, the vast majority of shiitake mushrooms (and other mushroom species) are nonetheless produced in indoor climate-controlled facilities on sawdust substrates. Partly due to this shift in production method and a declining population of individuals going into farming, log-grown shiitake is generally declining. The remaining log-grown shiitake industry is dominated by long-term/lifelong growers, and/or growers that prefer the process of producing shiitake this way. There are initiatives from both industry and Japanese government (often local) to bolster log-grown shiitake production culturally, and by touting the distinct qualities and heritage of log-grown shiitake vs. those grown indoors on sawdust. Drying and processing equipment and facilities are also often bolstered by government programs or may be cooperatively owned. Wood used for log-grown shiitake is almost exclusively on two species of oak (Quercus acutissima and serrata), and it is not uncommon for trees to be planted with shiitake production as the intended end-use, and for timber to be provided by a third party service rather than by the shiitake grower.

Japan has also developed "hybrid" systems for producing shiitake on logs, which makes use of open or indoor shaded hoophouse type structures instead of outdoor spaces under forest canopy. The majority of shiitake produced outdoors on logs under forest canopy (i.e. forest-cultivated) is being grown for dried shiitake markets. Forest-cultivated shiitake for dried shiitake markets is somewhat of a lower-input system that generally makes use of lower inoculation rates and plug spawn (which facilitates a slower spawn run rate), and colder weather strains (which fruit more spontaneously, in accordance with seasonal shifts in temperature). Fruiting in these systems may be sometimes assisted by overhead irrigation and/or physically striking the bolts instead of soaking bolts (forced-fruiting). Colder weather strains are used in outdoor shiitake production because the natural shiitake growing season is more oriented towards late fall and early spring, which tends to be the drier part of the year in Japan. This production season timing is notably different than the PNW, where the shiitake production season needs to be oriented towards late spring/early summer through late summer/early fall due to the PNW having the opposite precipitation pattern. Alternatively, log-grown shiitake for fresh markets in Japan though tends to have more in common with PNW shiitake production. Japanese fresh market shiitake growers tend to use of sawdust spawn, wide range and warm weather strains, and higher inoculation rates, practices that are similar to the PNW. Sometimes midsummer weather in Japan is more prohibitively hot (partially due to nights remaining warm) for producing shiitake though compared to the PNW though. Fresh market log-grown shiitake production in Japan also often uses shaded hoophouse structures for 1) quality control and 2) season extension; use of these structures is often bolstered by government purchase assistance programs. This approach is somewhat similar to the PNW; while shaded hoophouses are not a standard practice in PNW log-grown shiitake production, the "fruiting tent" approach that we've developed for outdoor production in the PNW (where sets of ~25 bolts are completely wrapped in breathable fabric during fruiting) serves a similar purpose regarding quality control, but is a far lower-input/financial investment than a hoophouse-type setup. Innovative fresh-market shiitake growers in Japan also may make use of hoophouses as an environmental control accelerating spawn run; these growers and may often also rely more heavily on direct marketing in urban centers to overcome low prices that they would otherwise receive from wholesale commodity markets. The latter context is also similar to what would be encountered in the PNW by new and beginning forest-cultivated shiitake growers.

Our tour also exposed the team different production approaches and specialized equipment that is currently not accessible to US growers. In addition, it also allowed us to develop an important connection with one of the major innovative spawn companies in Japan, Fujishukin (Fuji Spawn). PI-Shults and Key Collaborator Kawai were able to meet with a company representative just before returning to the US, during which they learned that Fujishukin also had pre-established connections with Field and Forest Products in the US. In January of 2024, PI-Shults convened a meeting between the research team, Fujishukin, and Field and Forest Products in order to discuss shiitake resources that may be useful to PNW growers and possibilities for accessing strains with potential to perform well for PNW growers. 

E5) In addition to seven trainings for participating growers, a PI O’Dea held a two-day short course in 2022 in Vancouver (23 attendees), a hands-on workshop (25 attendees) and a field day (42 attendees) in 2023 in Vancouver, a conference session at the OSU Small Farms School (29 attendees) in 2023, and two hands-on workshops in 2024 at Headwaters Farm Incubator in Gresham, OR (16 attendees), and in Vancouver (24 attendees). An additional hands-on workshop in Vancouver was scheduled for May 2024 due to demand.

PI-Shults gave a demonstration workshop in 2023 (30 attendees), and held a hands-on workshop in Olympia in 2024 (21 attendees), and presented on the project at the River Restoration Northwest Conference in Skamania, WA (~350 attendees). CO-PI Zobrist has a hands-on workshop planned for May, 2024, and Co-PI Jones has two hands-on workshops planned for Spring 2025. 

For general project outreach, a CO-PI Jones hosted a shiitake mushroom tabling event at the Maple Conference in Portland, OR in 2023 reaching approximately 350 people. To date, the www.pnwforestmushroomgrowers.net website has accumulated 486 visits (459 unique, and 34 repeat visitors) and 731 page views. The project also received press coverage in 2023 through articles by WSU Insider and the Capital Press about the project and the visiting scholar tour of Japan.

E6) Multiple educational materials on forest-cultivated shiitake production have been drafted by PI O’Dea thus far. These include 1) a 20-page illustrated production guide, 2) a shiitake production enterprise budget worksheet/calculator, 3) a table of PNW-sourced log substrates for shiitake production, 4) a visual two-year production timeline, 5) an abbreviated “to-do” production startup checklist, and 6) an inoculation rate table. A guide intended for non-commercial shiitake growers (home gardeners, hobbyists etc.) was also drafted for publication by Co-PI Shults, PI O'Dea, and Co-PI Jones in 2024, after recognizing a need for a discrete forest-cultivated shiitake growing guide for this sector of the community. Otherwise, All draft production guide materials were supplied to all participating growers, and all workshop and  participants as a reference for their production system setup. All participating growers are being solicited for feedback on the materials during year-end interviews throughout the project. After year 1, participating growers largely found that the production guidance materials provided by Extension to be helpful and thorough, although a few growers suggested improving clarity on the timeline of production activities and on strain selection. Many growers remarked that the hands-on trainings/workshops and mentorship were by far the most helpful educational components, and that if anything could be added to the guidance materials it would be instructional videos, as these would be the closest alternative to a hands-on, individualized educational experience.

The PNW Forest-Cultivated Mushroom Growers Network website (www.pnwforestmushroomgrowers.net) was initiated in 2022, with multiple pages published and public by 2024 (though with ongoing improvements being made), including the main home page, "About Us" and "Membership" headers, "Basics", "Timber", "Timber ID and Selection" (under Timber), "Inoculation", "Strains", and "Site" under the "Resources" header, and "Shiitake" under the "Mushrooms" header. The website will ultimately contain all the information provided through the draft guidance materials with additional video and and visual media, shiitake research summaries, links to printable guidance materials, and other resources for growers.