How to Grow Chicken of the Woods
How to Grow Chicken of the Woods
Growing chicken of the woods involves inoculating freshly cut hardwood or conifer logs with chicken of the woods mycelium and allowing the logs to fully colonize outdoors before the bright orange and yellow shelf fruiting bodies emerge.
Chicken of the woods is primarily a log cultivation species. Inoculated logs are drilled, packed with colonized plug spawn, sealed with wax, and stacked in a shaded outdoor location to colonize over 6 to 12 months. The outdoor environment provides the fruiting conditions naturally, making chicken of the woods log cultivation one of the more straightforward long term mushroom cultivation projects available to home growers. Indoor block cultivation of chicken of the woods on hardwood mushroom substrate has been documented in experimental protocols but results are inconsistent and fruiting is not guaranteed.
Chicken of the woods encompasses several distinct Laetiporus species, each with different host wood preferences and geographic ranges. Selecting the correct chicken of the woods species for your region and available log wood significantly impacts colonization success and fruiting results. Use the links below to find step by step guides for growing chicken of the woods by species.