It is well known in the art to grow mushrooms in host wood. Conventionally, this is accomplished by employing wood logs, wood pieces, and even wood in particulate form as the host or growing medium, the wood having been previously removed from a tree and maintained in a controlled environment conducive to mushroom growing.
Such prior art approaches are quite expensive and often do not lend themselves to large scale mushroom production. The following U.S. patents have been located and are believed to be representative of the current state of the prior art: U.S. Pat. No. 3,563,461, issued Feb. 16, 1971, U.S. Pat. No. 4,833,821, issued May 30, 1989, U.S. Pat. No. 4,918,859, issued Apr. 24, 1990, U.S. Pat. No. 1,833,089, issued Nov. 24, 1931, U.S. Pat. No. 4,763,440, issued Aug. 16, 1988, U.S. Pat. No. 4,646,465, issued Mar. 3, 1987, U.S. Pat. No. 5,001,858, issued Mar. 26, 1991, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,222,665, issued Jun. 29, 1993.