Straw Shiitake Liquid Culture

Description

The shiitake is an edible mushroom native to East Asia, which is cultivated and consumed in many Asian countries. It is considered a medicinal mushroom in some forms of traditional medicine.

The earliest written record of shiitake cultivation is seen in the Records of Longquan County compiled by He Zhan in 1209 during the Song dynasty in China. The 185-word description of shiitake cultivation from that literature was later cross-referenced many times and eventually adapted in a book by a Japanese horticulturist Satō Chūryō in 1796, the first book on shiitake cultivation in Japan. The Japanese cultivated the mushroom by cutting shii trees with axes and placing the logs by trees that were already growing shiitake or contained shiitake spores. Before 1982, the Japan Islands’ variety of these mushrooms could only be grown in traditional locations using ancient methods. A 1982 report on the budding and growth of the Japanese variety revealed opportunities for commercial cultivation in the United States.

Shiitake are widely cultivated worldwide, contributing about 25% of the total yearly production of mushrooms. Commercially, shiitake mushrooms are typically grown in conditions similar to their natural environment on either artificial substrate or hardwood logs, such as oak.

Atsushi Nakajima, mfeaver