Non timber forest products

[Don Staples]

Larry Caldwell wrote:
> 

> 
> > There is also the problem of having a market for the product.  Texas has made an effort
> > to use one of our trash trees for a source bed for the shitake mushroom. We have a
> > rudimentary industry now, but the market has not developed as expected.  We have a
> 
> Shiitake are grown here too, using chips, cereals, or bolts of white oak as
> a substrate.  It seems like a lot of work for a mushroom, if you know what
> I mean.  Even so, all food stores, even the local mom and pop markets around
> here, carry shiitakes in the produce section right along side the agaricus
> bisporus.  Is your problem the lack of a local wholesale produce market,
> or lack of consumer acceptance?  I know that mushroom consumption is very
> much a cultural thing, and people only eat mushrooms if their grandparents
> did.  I would think by now Texas would be cosmopolitan enough to support
> a good sized fresh mushroom market.  Is competition from Mexico a problem?
>
> -- Larry

Not sure if it is competition with the south, or just the beginnings of the industry.  
Not 2 days after I wrote the note above, I noticed shitakes in the local grocery store. 
Maybe just a development period.  We use Sweet gum stacked in a cord wood formation, 
innoculate and keep damp.  Not labor intensive, but does take attention.  I am not in 
the business, so my comments may be short of fact.

Texas is indeed more cosmopolitin than most would beleave, too much Zane Grey! Houston 
markets offer any food stuff from any section of the world, much of it home grown.
> 
> 
> > When the demand is created, we'll grown what is necessary to fill the demand.
> > Meanwhile, some of us work to keep our little portion of the world as wild as possible.
> > Occasionally we are successful.