Polyporus stipticus

Using stumps to grow mushrooms

Stumps can be used to grow oyster mushrooms. This is easy to do, for example, at a summer cottage. To do this, you need a shady area or a room and a few hardwood stumps (birch, aspen, apple tree, pear, acacia, poplar). Coniferous crops are not suitable for these purposes.

The stumps should not be old, ideally if they are freshly sawn. Dry ones will need to be soaked in water for several days. Their sizes do not play a fundamental difference. Convenient segments with a diameter of 15 to 40 cm and a height of 40 to 50 cm.

Oyster mushrooms can be grown both in open areas and indoors. If you plan to place stumps on the street, then the place should be in the shade and well ventilated. At temperatures below + 20 ° C, a cover with agrofibre will be required. The optimal time for planting is April-May and August-September. The mycelium takes three months to germinate.

There are several ways to stack the logs. In each of them, you will need to dig a ditch at least 30 cm deep and wide corresponding to the diameter of the wooden blanks. If there are supports for the logs, you can not dig the ground, but place stumps on its surface.

There are also several ways to introduce mycelium into the stump - for example, by drilling holes, by cutting off the upper part, building a pyramid from chocks with several layers of mycelium, etc.

In winter, stumps will need to be brought into the room or covered with straw or agrofibre.

Important! An important condition for growing oyster mushrooms in an open area is regular moistening of the soil around the stumps. A drip irrigation system is best suited for these purposes.

disinfect

It is most convenient to lay the logs after sowing with mycelium in the basement or shed horizontally, on top of each other. From above, they are covered with burlap or perforated film.

With vertical installation of logs, columns are made of them and covered with straw, sawdust. From the sides, the columns are covered with foil or burlap.

The air in the room must be constantly humid. Frequent ventilation is required.

In May, stumps can be transplanted into the ground in the open air.

Mr. Dachnik recommends: wood mushrooms - useful properties, use in cooking

The Chaga birch tree mushroom has become famous for its medicinal properties - teas, decoctions from it have a powerful immunostimulating and tonic effect.

Planting mushrooms on a farm has become a profitable business and now we often see delicious and nutritious oyster mushrooms on sale, which also belong to woody ones. In nature, they are yellow, greenish and other shades and grow in a large family. Forest species are much more fragrant than their artificially bred relatives. A big plus can be considered the fact that they do not have poisonous counterparts.

Tree ears, as mushrooms are called due to their resemblance to the auricle, are very popular in oriental dishes. However, they are rarely prepared as an independent dish, since they do not have a special aroma and pronounced taste. Mushrooms are good as a side dish paired with meat, giving it a subtle haze flavor. The crispy and dense texture is delicious and nutritious, especially when well seasoned.

Undoubtedly, woody mushrooms have taken a worthy place in human nutrition: it is not for nothing that we have begun to meet them more and more often on supermarket shelves, thereby enriching the diet with healthy and nutritious protein products.

Among the huge number of representatives of the mushroom kingdom in the forests, mushrooms growing on trees are often found. Among them there are popular and edible ones, for example, honey mushroom, oyster mushroom. And many are considered inedible parasites, which is not always true. They are quite varied and interesting to study.

Mushrooms used in traditional medicine

There are varieties of mushrooms of this type, which are effectively used in folk medicine for the treatment of various diseases, they are introduced into the composition of medicinal tinctures, decoctions, added to ointments:

• larch sponge (Fomitopsis officinalis) or agaricus. Mushrooms are white or pale yellow in color, oblong in shape, similar to the hoof of an animal. They can weigh up to 10 kg. They grow on coniferous trees or larch stumps. When used in the composition of the drug, it weakens, stops the blood, soothes, acts as a mild sleeping pill. Used to reduce perspiration;

• lacquered polypore (Ganoderma lucidum), or Reishi. It can be easily seen on the stumps of destroyed hardwood trees. The cap is ovoid or kidney-shaped, red-brown in color, covered with a delicate, smooth, shiny skin. The pulp is ocher colored, tasteless. Medicines made on the basis of lacquered tinder fungus have an antitumor, immunostimulating effect, improve blood circulation, metabolic processes, normalize blood pressure.

• tinder fungus (Inonotus obliquus) or chaga, or birch mushroom. It affects alder, birch, maple stumps, as well as trees, growing up to forty centimeters in diameter. The body is black, irregular in shape in the form of a growth covered with small cracks. As part of the drug, it has an anti-gastritis, antitumor, diuretic, antispasmodic effect.

Edible and healthy

Experienced mushroom pickers are often interested in the question: what mushrooms of the Tinder genus should be collected for food? Not every mushroom is as tough as a sole. Some of its varieties are quite edible. Tinder fungus is sulfur-yellow, despite the suspiciously poisonous yellow color of the fruiting body, it is quite edible at a young age. Its pulp is slightly harsh, but after prolonged boiling and stewing, it is good for food, it has a pleasant mushroom taste and smell. Despite the mushroom's culinary appeal, you shouldn't be happy when it appears on a tree in your garden. Like all Polypores, he very quickly destroys and kills wood.

Chaga birch, a tree mushroom, deserves a special talk. There are legends about the healing properties of Chaga. In ancient times, it was considered almost a panacea, today it is actively used for treatment:

1. diseases of the cardiovascular system;
2. diseases of the gastrointestinal tract;
3. diabetes mellitus;
4. cancerous tumors.

Chaga-based preparations work as pain relievers, tonic, immunostimulating agents. The natural miracle cure is especially useful for the elderly. It improves cerebral circulation, restores vitality, and improves the general condition of the body. For a long time in our country, drinks from the chopped and dried core of the mushroom have been known:

• tea, considered a prophylactic against cancer;
• useful kvass from Chaga decoction with the addition of honey.

Due to their high density, these woody mushrooms are absolutely unsuitable for normal consumption. When collecting Chaga, the fruit body has to be separated from the tree with an ax.

Popular and common

Customers who come to the supermarket for mushrooms are the first to be greeted by Oyster mushrooms. They literally flooded retail outlets. Many private entrepreneurs, large mushroom farms have mastered the method of artificially growing these mushrooms. They are prolific and unpretentious. However, the cultivated Oyster mushroom significantly loses to the varieties that grow in nature in taste, it has almost no characteristic mushroom aroma.

For amateurs who are not versed in mushrooms, Oyster mushrooms are ideal. They are edible and tasty, poisonous counterparts do not exist in nature. For beginners, it is enough to study the photos and names of varieties of Oyster mushrooms - and it's time to go on a quiet hunt. Do you want to know exactly what kind of mushroom you met in the forest? Then carefully read the description, the mushroom encyclopedia contains detailed verbal portraits of mushrooms, valuable information about the beneficial properties, methods of preparation.

Once in a forest or park, inspect the trunks of living and fallen trees, stumps and dead wood. Oyster mushroom is a common tree fungus that grows even in gardens on weakened, diseased fruit trees. Finding a whole family is a matter of time, do not rush, be careful, the patient mushroom picker will receive a reward. Edible mushrooms in the trees are good luck for the gatherer. Almost all types of Oyster mushrooms grow in large families weighing from 1 to 3 kg. When a lucky mushroom picker finds one of them, a full frying pan of delicious fried mushrooms awaits. Do not be alarmed when you come across pink, orange, olive, yellow mushrooms on tree trunks, these are edible varieties of Oyster mushrooms.

Chicken mushroom

The main feature of this mushroom is that when cooked, a smell and taste similar to chicken is obtained. Vegetarians who don't eat meat are very fond of this mushroom. If a person does not know that this mushroom is used in a dish, then he will mistake the dish for chicken.

Beneficial features:

• Helps in the treatment of staphylococcus
• Fights Respiratory Diseases
• Helps the liver to function better
• Promotes weight loss

Only young mushrooms can be eaten, adult mushrooms are already becoming poisonous. Mushrooms growing on willows and poplars should not be eaten either. Due to the substances in the bark of these trees, the mushrooms acquire a bitter taste.

Bizarre shapes of the mushroom kingdom

Some species of xylotrophs do not at all resemble mushrooms in the traditional sense of the word. In appearance, they resemble:

• sea ​​corals - Kalocera;
• droplets of resin - Exidium glandular;
• polyurethane foam bubbles - disappearing Dacrimyces;
• pieces of minced meat - meat Askokorine.

Hypocrea sulfur-yellow deserves a separate mention. This mushroom lives on a tree, but feeds on its fellows. The spongy, bright yellow body of Hypocrea envelops the trunk in areas inhabited by colonies of Tremors or Exidium ferruginous. The fruiting bodies of gelatinous xylotrophs are the favorite food of the parasitic fungus: it completely absorbs and processes them.

Special literature, oral stories of experienced mushroom pickers do not contain information about the edibility of these types of woody mushrooms. They look so strange that it never even occurs to anyone to collect, cook, taste the taste of one of these outlandish mushroom representatives. Their fruiting bodies are extremely small. It will take several hours of intensive searching to try and appreciate the edibility of these amazing xylotrophs.

Caution - danger to trees

Some woody mushrooms are very beautiful. They are especially noticeable in the forest in late autumn, when the trees have lost their deciduous cover. Passing through the forest thicket, mushroom pickers from afar notice bright Polypores, painted in different shades of yellow, red, brown. However, no one is usually in a hurry to quickly get to these mushrooms, even those growing very low. The reason for this inattention lies in the peculiarities of the structure of fruit chalk.

Most Polypores have a hard, fibrous structure similar to wood. There is nothing strange in this, Polypores are malicious parasitic fungi that feed on woody tissues. The most dangerous representative of the species is the northern climacodon. It can lead to the death of an initially healthy tree within 3-4 years. Any cut, crack, or bark wound is a potential weak point. Through the hole, the spores of Tinderpore enter the trunk, form a mycelium. In the end, the growth process of the fungus provokes the destruction and rotting of the wood.

Mushrooms on trees are an acute problem in forests, gardens, park areas. Tinder fungus equally readily affects forest birches, aspens, oaks, and fruit apples, pears, cherries. To protect the garden from infection with a dangerous parasite, monitor the condition of the bark. Protect fruit trees from frostbite, this is the main cause of cracks. If damage appears on the tree, be sure to treat them with garden varnish.

List of edible forest mushrooms with photos, names and descriptions

The cap is from 3 to 10 cm in diameter, light olive, slimy, sticky, shiny when dry.The pulp is thin, white. The plates are sparse, wide, white or creamy, descending along the pedicle. Spore powder is white. Leg up to 10 s ...

Gigrofor russula (Hygrophorus russula)

Oyster mushroom. Oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus)

Autumn oyster mushroom. Willow pig (Panellus serotinus)

Oyster mushroom (Pleurotus dryinus)

Oyster mushroom (Pleurotus cornucopiae)

Poisonous and inedible types of mushrooms

Description of mushrooms growing on trees

Where fruit trees are poorly looked after, you can often see growths on trunks and skeletal branches. They have various shapes: hoof-like with concentric grooves, tiled, semicircular, fleshy, flat, in the form of small mushrooms with a short stalk.

They are all parasitic fungi. Some of them grow on dead stumps and branches, others parasitize growing fruit and ornamental trees. Infection of trees with tinder fungi occurs at the sites of damage. These can be mechanical damage (cuts of cut, but untreated branches), frost holes, sunburn, bark beetle lesions, etc. Spores of fungi, once on the wound, germinate and form a mycelium, which spreads into the tree. Affected wood rots, hollows are formed, the trunk and branches dry out prematurely.

The branches may not dry out, but they are in a depressed state. Shoot growth and productivity are sharply reduced. Under the pressure of even a slight wind, skeletal branches break, and large hollows are exposed.It is characteristic that the mycelium can develop in the middle of the trunk and branches for many years without coming to the surface. By the nature of the destruction, tinder fungi resemble tuberculosis in the human body. Secretly, but persistently, day after day, the tinder fungus destroys the wood of a tree, like tuberculosis - lungs or human bones.

You can prevent the appearance of woody fungi by regularly inspecting the trunk. If green streaks appear on its north-western side, it means that the simplest algae - the predecessors of mushrooms - have settled on the tree. There is only one reason: thickened plantings, the garden is dark and damp.

How dangerous are tinder fungi for a gardener? In the old days, there was a strict instruction from the USSR Ministry of Agriculture, which instructed the heads of collective and state farms and chief agronomists to immediately destroy (burn) fruit trees affected by tinder fungi. It was forbidden to use the wood of diseased trees for fuel. They were subject to complete destruction.

On the surface of the affected parts of the tree, the mycelium forms fruit bodies.

In some mushrooms, the fruit bodies are perennial, hard, hoof-shaped, in others, annual, soft.

Fruiting bodies, when ripe, form a large number of spores, which are scattered by the wind and infect trees. Tinder fungus and spores mature in mid-August. Dispersion of spores occurs in late August - early September.

Oligoporus bluish-gray (Postia caesia)

• Other names for the mushroom:
• Postia bluish-gray
• Postia bluish-gray
• Postia gray-blue

Other names:

• Oligoporus bluish gray;
• The postia is bluish-gray;
• The post is gray-blue;
• Bjerkandera caesia;
• Boletus caesius;
• Oligoporus caesius;
• Polyporus caesiocoloratus;
• Polyporus ciliatulus;
• Tyromyces caesius;
• Leptoporus caesius;
• Polyporus caesius;
• Polystictus caesius;

External description

The fruiting bodies of the bluish-gray postia consist of a cap and a leg. The stem is very small, sessile, and the fruit body is half-shaped. Oligoporus bluish-gray is characterized by a wide spreading part, fleshy and soft structure.

The top of the hat is white with small bluish spots in the form of spots. If you press hard on the surface of the fruiting body, then the pulp changes its color to a more intense one. In immature mushrooms, the skin is covered with a bristle edging, but as the mushrooms mature, it becomes bare. The pulp of this type of mushroom is very soft, white in color; under the influence of air it becomes blue, greenish or grayish. Taste at bluish gray post insipid, the pulp is characterized by a barely noticeable aroma.

The hymenophore in the fungus is represented by a tubular type, has a grayish, bluish or white color, which becomes more intense and saturated with mechanical action. The pores are characterized by their angularity and large size, and in mature mushrooms they acquire an irregular shape. The tubules of the hymenophore are long, jagged and very uneven edges. Initially, the color of the tubes is whitish, and then it becomes fawn with a bluish tint. If you press on the surface of the tube, then its color changes, darkens to bluish-gray.

The length of the cap in a bluish-gray post varies within 6 cm, and its width is about 3-4 cm. In such mushrooms, the cap often grows sideways with the stem, has a fan-shaped shape, is covered with visible villi on top, fibrous. The color of the mushroom cap is often grayish-blue-green, sometimes lighter along the edges, having yellowish tints.

Season and habitat of the mushroom

You can meet the bluish-gray posture in the summer and autumn months (from July to November), mainly on the stumps of deciduous and coniferous trees, on tree trunks and dead branches. The fungus is found infrequently, mainly in small groups. You can see the bluish-gray posttia on the dying wood of willow, alder, hazel, beech, fir, spruce and larch.

Edibility

There are no toxic and poisonous substances in the fruiting bodies of the bluish-gray Postia, but this type of mushroom is very tough, so many mushroom pickers say that they are inedible.

Similar types and differences from them

In mushroom growing, there are several closely related varieties with bluish-gray posture, differing in ecology and some microscopic features. For example, Postia bluish-gray has a difference in that the fruiting bodies of the fungus do not turn blue when touched. This mushroom can also be confused with alder post. True, the latter differs in the place of growth, and is found mainly on alder wood.

Other information about the mushroom

The first description for the postia bluish-gray was by Heinrich Adolf Schrader. The scientist made it in 1794, in a group with other mushrooms that have a tubular hymenophore. In 1821, another scientist - E.M. Fries transferred the bluish-gray posture to another genus - tubular tree fungi, narrower in structure. And only in 1881, Peter Adolf Carsten transferred the mushrooms of this species to the genus Postia.

The effect of fungi on the bark of trees

Mushrooms are destructive to trees. It touches both the bark and its roots. Usually fruiting bodies are formed on old, diseased, damaged, insect-infested trunks. They can affect both forest plants and fruit crops. They often provoke the development of various rot and other diseases. As a result, the tree may die completely.

But some of the tree fungi, for example, the tinder fungus, are called forest orderlies, since they contribute to the decomposition of old and diseased wood, enriching the soil with nutrients.

Mushroom pickers, conducting a "quiet hunt", most often look at their feet with concentration, looking for the desired prey among the grass. However, some of the fungi prefer to grow on the trunks and roots of trees. And among these mushrooms, you can find quite tasty and aromatic specimens suitable for cooking various dishes. If you do not have a forest overflowing with mushrooms nearby, then you can grow them for yourself with your own hands, using recently cut stumps.

How to grow an oyster mushroom on a tree (video)

Experts conditionally divide parasitic fungi into two types:

1. Obligate view. Unable to live without a host tree. Parasitizing on a tree, they absorb organic compounds, gradually leading the plant to death. During the life cycle, the pest manages to form spores that will continue its genus.
2. An optional species leading to the death of the host. Parasitic organisms feed on the tissues of dead organisms, thus utilizing waste.

Also read: Mushroom Mushroom: Description of Species and Features of Collection

For example, a tinder fungus can live on a tree for more than one year, killing it. Then, after the death of the plant, he lives on a felled tree until it is completely processed.

A polypore can live on a tree for more than one year, killing it

Evaluation of the edibility of post and astringent

Astringent post is a poorly studied, inedible, woody mushroom. These mushrooms taste bitter, so they are not used for food.

Similarity of post binders with other mushrooms

It is very simple to recognize the astringent posture - its fruit bodies are very large, noticeable, white in color. A notable feature is that these mushrooms "cry".

Astringent postia has an external resemblance to a poisonous fungus - fractured aurantioporus. But aurantioporus has a milder taste. In addition, this species is most often found on conifers - on apple and aspen trees.

Related species

The postia is bluish-gray - inedible. The leg is seated, very small. The shape of the fruiting body is half. The flesh of this mushroom is very soft. The cap is white with bluish spots. At a young age, the caps are pubescent, but over time they become bare. The color of the cap is blue-green or gray-green, sometimes the edges are lighter yellowish.

Blue-gray posts bear fruit from July to November. They grow in coniferous and deciduous forests.They are rare and grow in small groups. This species can be found on alder, willow, beech, hazel, barely, fir and larch.

Tinder fungus is another inedible tree fungus. The hat is fluffy, furrowed, up to 20 cm in size. The color of the hat is rusty brown or light brown, and the edges are white. Legs, as a rule, are not present, rarely there can be a very small lateral leg. Cork pulp, tough, chocolate brown.

Tinder fungi grow flat on fallen trees and stumps of deciduous trees. These fungi cause wood rot and the development of white rot. Flat polypores bear fruit from May to September.