Don’t be greedy: firewood and shiitake mushrooms in Japanese forest

 

Once upon a time, forest was indispensable place for daily life in Japan. Reason: it was the place where people procure fuel. Before the life with fossil fuels, Japanese gathered firewood from forest nearby. When forest was out of reach, like for the city dwellers in downtown, wood and charcoals were something expensive but indispensable necessity to buy. Forest was precious for survival. Such days lasted until the mid-20th century, about 70 years ago. We can still find the remnants of yesteryear’s usage of forest in Yokohama. The easiest sign is large marks of coppicing here and there in the forest near us.

The way people harvested firewood was thinning. In Yokohama, popular species for firewood were oaks, like jolcham oak (Quercus serrata) or sawtooth oak (Quercus acutissima). People planted oaks in their land and waited. From a seedling to be a nice-sized tree for fuel, it took about 15 or so years. After thinning, oaks will sprout basal shoots from the stamp so that the scheme could continue for a loooooooong time without new planting. When you have “self-sufficient” size of land, you plan your afforestation from a patch to another, and stagger thinning from year to year. “This year we harvest our firewood from area A, next year from area B.” It was an efficient, economical, stable, and sustainable strategy for securing household energy. The oak logs obtained was about 15 to 20cm in diameter that was a nice size to be fuel. And they have another usage. I mean, other than being firewood or doorstopper.

The typical sign telling this place was once a field for procuring firewood.
 Could you see large trees starting from the same root?
They sprouted after their predecessors were coppiced for fuel.
Their size says they did not have such chance to be firewood.
The landlord stopped doing this long ago.
The left-over shoots eventually become large trees of some 50cm diameter.

Abandoned old oaks can easily a pray for Japanese oak wilt.
The City cut a part of this sawtooth oak in a park
to avoid them falling over the head of strollers.

These days, almost all mushrooms we find in Japanese supermarket are cultivated version. I would say they are “manufactured” on mushroom bed in sterile room for controlled “factories.” That’s true for many species of fungus, including shiitake mushrooms. The 21st century cultivation methodology guarantees us steady and cheaper supply of shiitake mushrooms all year around. That’s a very good news, yeah. Though, factory-made shiitake mushrooms lack something … the robust earthy flavor, maybe. Shiitake mushrooms are important ingredient for Japanese (and beyond) cuisine. Japanese were searching for the way to cultivate Shiitake mushrooms since the 17th century. Unlike white mushrooms whose cultivation technique was found in the early 18th century, for some time Japanese way to cultivate Shiitake mushrooms was “Spare robust logs of oaks out of a pile of firewood, scratch the surface of a wood with machete, leave it in humid shade of forest, pray for seed fugus to dwell on the logs, and miraculously Shiitake mushrooms sprout.” That was a gamble, but significant usage of oak woods besides for firewood. Granted, their taste might be less profound than the true wild shiitake mushrooms, but definitely more flavorful than factory version. Actually, to harvest tastier shiitake mushrooms from forest, we are still using somehow improved traditional method of using oak logs for firewood.

A factory version in our fridge.

These days we don’t have to play roulette for seed to come to oak logs. Fungus seed of Shiitake mushrooms are commercially available. Using the seed, many Japanese mountainous communities are competing each other to supply Shiitake mushrooms “with more robust taste than factory-made ones.” They inoculate oak tree logs with fugus seed, put them neatly in humid shades of their forest, water them in a controlled way, and harvest the product. In all the agricultural experiment stations in Japan researchers are busy to establish the best way to have the top-quality Shiitake mushrooms in forests. Which oak species are the most suitable for the best Shiitake mushrooms? The size of tree? Where and how long to leave them in a forest? The microclimate of the site? Temperature? Moisture? Intensity of sun light? Air circulation? Etc. etc. Nowadays shiitake cultivation is the main usage of coppiced oak trees of 15 to 20 years old. When you hike mountains in Tanzawa, Hakone, Sagamihara, you may find farmers sell their Shiitake mushrooms. They are from the woods planted seeds of fungus.

The old “site” to put inoculated oak tree.
 Hmmmm … here the trees are almost spent …

Actually, fungus seeds are readily available in our nearby home improvement centers together with logs. We, forest volunteers as Lovers of Niiharu Forest 新治市民の森, annually inoculate oak logs with shiitake seeds to utilize the woods produced during our forestry activity. We drill holes on appropriately sized logs from our weekend, hammer the fungus seed from home improvement store, and voila! Here is the Shiitake mushroom bed. The season to inoculate Shiitake seed in Yokohama is spring. It takes roughly one year after planting the seed for Shiitake mushrooms sprouting. i.e. The season of “natural” Shiitake mushrooms is spring. During the whole process, we keep the seeded woods in nice shade where it is humid enough for the bed to supply sufficient nutrients for fugus to be mushrooms …

This is shiitake mushroom seed.
 Moist sawdust is molded into a peg about 0.8cm diameter
 and injected lots of shiitake seeds (fungus).

Woods from thinned oaks are drilled holes
here and there for the seed to be inserted.

The seeds are inserted to the holes.
 Now, lets strike them!

One weekend of this spring, Niiharu Lovers engaged in the annual task of “giving shots” to oak woods. I am learning the skill to embed mushroom seeds on logs … Practice, practice, practice. We must strike the mushroom seed vertically and securely but not too strongly. After planting the mushroom seeds, the members of Association of Lovers for Niiharu Citizen Forest can buy inoculated logs at reasonable price. I’m purchasing one wood per year for a shady corner of our family garden. Surely, they sprout Shiitake mushrooms every spring. 😊😊😊 This year, a senior volunteer advised me. “Naomi, you’d better carry a larger wood. They will provide nice harvest. The value for money, you know.” Hmmmm. Skinny logs are easier to move to shady places, but the nutrients from such seed bed are smaller. In order to expect 4-5 years of steady harvesting of shiitake mushrooms, we should choose logs of larger diameter ... I took the advice. I chose a 50cm wood in 20cm diameter.

The inoculated wood.
It’s better not to squash the seed.

That was … a true adventure with shiitake mushrooms. After saying see-you-next-week, I carried the log by arms. (I’m commuting Niiharu Forest on foot.) After 500m or so of walking my arms started screaming. Hey, you fool! You must know how heavy a log of sawtooth oak of this size. You become greedy, and now this phenomenal burden … Next Monday morning, I had a serious problem in maneuvering PC … Lessons learned. I keep crossing my fingers for reasonable pay off from my new wood with shiitake mushrooms.

If you find a problem in the greenery of north-half of Yokohama, please make a contact with

Office for the Park Greeneries in the North
北部公園緑地事務所
Yokohama Municipal Government Creative Environment Policy Bureau
横浜市環境創造局
Phone: 045-311-2016
FAX: 045-316-8420

Niiharu Administrative Office / Satoyama Exchange Center
新治管理事務所・里山交流センター
Phone: 045-931-4947
Fax: 045-937-0898
Email: info@niiharu.jp
http://www.niiharu.jp/