Members of the Benjamin Logan Environmental Science Club recently collaborated with local experts, along with specialty tools and specimens, for an ooey-gooey initiative that in the warmer months will produce tasty fungi on school grounds.
Approximately 20 student members of the club in grades three through six participated in the inoculation process of white oak branches with shiitake mushroom spawn, as directed by volunteers Ryan Kerns, Spencer Reames, Mike Schmidt, Bruce Smith, Bob Stoll and Jeremy Titus.
In the Benjamin Logan High School agriculture lab, students worked to cut the white oak branches provided by Delmar Tree Service of Marysville into lengths of approximately 1 to 1.5 meters.
Then they used high-speed drills to drill holes into the branches and used an inoculating tool to introduced the spawn, which was the mycelium of the fungus mixed with sawdust.
Next, the young scientists slathered the branches with molten wax, at a temperature of over 120 degrees Celsius, all over the freshly filled gashes.
Field and Forrest, a firm from Wisconsin that deals with all-things fungi, was the source of the spawn, club leaders said.
The logs are currently resting in the Benjamin Logan greenhouse. In the upcoming months, the logs will be set outside to await fruiting, which will produce about a pound of mushrooms per log.
The Benjamin Logan Growing Gardens Growing Minds Club plans to offer the shiitake mushrooms at the Mary Rutan Farmer’s Market later in the year. The Environmental Science Club is co-sponsored by the school district and the Logan County Land Trust.