Wonderings on water quality: Shiitake update for 2nd & 3rd shocking of 1st batch of logs

The first shiitake log shocking went well. Onto the next! Was at the family farm for a birthday celebration and so I filled the stock tank there with rain water and dropped in 7 logs. Returned to the farm the following day to remove the logs, and brought a few things back to my place: the stock tank (drained), shocked shiitake logs (5, left 2 at farm for family to enjoy), and remaining logs that are too long for the tank as is and haven’t been shocked yet (3). Now awaiting fruits of the 2nd shocking, and soon to start another 3rd and last shocking for this first batch of inoculated logs. The 2nd and 3rd groups of shocked logs will serve as a loose experiment.

Water quality is lingering on my mind. At the farm there’s rain water catch from the metal roof into a small rain barrel and into buckets. Some of the buckets developed algae/biofilm which concerned me last time, but I got over that by thinking algae and biofilms are a natural occurance anywhere with standing water (or even on rocks in running rivers). This time around, after pouring out one of the buckets into the stock tank, two clamps fell out of the bucket. Turned out those clamps were old/used rat traps, catching mice and chipmunks. To play it safe I drained the stock tank and refilled it with rain water after that. It does make me wonder though, how important is water quality used for shocking shiitake logs? Water quality questions are rarely simple & certain, often having complexities and trade-offs. This is no different.

Building upon that question of water quality shocking, I asked a regional listserv and will do an experiment with the remaining logs in this experimental batch. I brought them and the stock tank home so I could test out shocking the logs with municipal water. While the water quality for drinking is generally more reliable from the city, not having hydrogen sulfide from the farm’s well or other potential contaminants from used buckets or roofs, the city water is chemically treated to help prevent biological contaminants. What’s that going to do for fungus feeding on the soaked logs? My partner and I hypothesize the tap water soaking will result in a worse flush than using rain water, due to the chlorine. Not a perfectly controlled experiment, but we’ll see what happens!

What do you think?