Red Reishi (Ganoderma lucidum) is an edible medicinal mushroom known as “Ling Zhi” in China and “Reishi" or "Manetake” in Japan. It produces beautiful, reddish-brown, shelf-like fruiting bodies that are highly prized for their wellness properties.

Red Reishi is widely cultivated on logs commercially in Asia. However, most commercial producers in North America grow reishi indoors. 

Red reishi can be difficult to cultivate and is ideal for advanced and enthusiast growers who have had some success growing other mushrooms. 

Note: Aside from being kiln dried, our wooden dowels are not treated in any other way.

Ideal project size: Plug spawn is ideal for smaller projects of 1-10 logs, though some log cultivators will use them for larger projects.

Inoculation: This species of reishi mushroom grows well on oak, maple, and other hardwoods. Reishi works best when fully colonized logs are buried underground. Reishi likes any of the three log methods and colonizes in 12-24 months. It prefers oak logs and fruits in the summer. After a 1-year colonization period above ground, Reishi logs may be buried under 2 inches of topsoil to mimic its natural method of production. Mushrooms will fruit from the logs and emerge from the soil.

Cooking: Red reishi is tough, woody, and bitter. For this reason, we don’t recommend it for culinary use. However, it can be dried and made into teas or powders. It can also be extracted to make tinctures.

reshi, lingzi, lingzhi, ling chih, bracket, bracket fungus, bracket fungi, ganoderma