Description
Uninoculated blank dowels to make your mushroom dowels for logs.
What are Dowels?
Dowels are grooved wooden plugs essential for creating your mushroom dowels for logs. The preparation process involves the steps below:
- Boiling: First, the dowels are boiled in water. They will float and start secreting sap, which appears frothy.
- Moisture Absorption: The dowels will begin to sink as they absorb sufficient moisture.
- Sterilization: Place the dowels in breathable mushroom bags, filling up to 60% of the bag’s capacity. Seal and sterilize the bags.
- Inoculation: After sterilization, add grain spawn of your preferred mushroom variety to the dowels and wait for colonization.
The grooves in the dowels protect the mycelium during the insertion into logs. The mycelium in the grooves will start colonizing the logs, ensuring successful mushroom growth.
How to Prepare Dowels
Use our specially designed drill bit for optimal results to create holes that fit the dowels perfectly. This ensures the dowels are snug without being too tight or too loose:
- If the hole is too loose, The mycelium won’t spread from the dowel to the log and may dry out.
- The mycelium may die due to heat and friction during insertion if the hole is too tight.
Can Agar and Liquid Culture be Used for Inoculation?
We do not recommend using agar or liquid culture for inoculating dowels as they either take significantly longer (up to six times more) to colonize or fail to colonize altogether. Use grain spawn, which we offer in 100g packs, to ensure your dowels are effectively colonized for efficient inoculation.
If you need to buy colonized dowels or a dowel inoculation kit or want to visit our shopping list created for people who want to grow mushrooms on logs, feel free to browse.
