When chaga infects a living birch tree, the tree tries to protect itself by creating a very dense layer of wood in order to compartmentalize the mushroom on the inside. When this happens the mushroom can consume everything on the inside of the tree but it can’t attack any of the new growth. So the…
What overharvesting looks like
Although it may have seemed like there was a lot of chaga out there back in 2012, the chaga that we were seeing on the trees represented our total chaga inventories for the next 20 years. By indiscriminately harvesting it we put ourselves out of work for many years. The notion that we can return…
Chaga’s Age, Annual Growth Layers
Chaga produces annual growth layers. These can be difficult to identify but can be seen in some conks if they are carefully split down the middle. In this particular conk I was able to identify 15 growth layers (marked with black lines in the photo) suggesting this conk was over 15 years old. It weighed about…