Turkey Tail Mushrooms

Turkey Tail mushrooms (Trametes Versicolor), are a type of polypore mushroom which grow in many places around the world. Polypore mushrooms have pores on their undersides rather than the gills seen on most mushrooms. Turkey Tail mushroom caps can have rings of different colors including white, various shades of red and orange, through to a dark brown. They get their name because their rings of brown and tan look like the tail feathers of a turkey.

Turkey Tail mushrooms

The caps of turkey tail mushrooms are about 2 to 8 cm across and are quite thin at only 1 to 2 mm in thickness. Depending on how mature the mushrooms are, the cap may be convex or flat.urkey tail caps can come in a variety of shapes. These include kidney-shaped, circular, semi-circular, bracket-shaped or fan-shaped.When the caps are young and fresh they are flexible, although they quickly dry out and become brittle

Due to their thick and woody texture they are pretty much inedible to humans, but have medicinal properties that originate from traditional Chinese medicine. Turkey Tail mushrooms are most commonly dried and ground into a powder and have been used to support digestion, help with lung health, body fluid regulation, and also supporting vitality. Brewing Turkey Tail as a tea unlocks its rich nutrition. More than just plain mushrooms, Eastern Herbalism values Turkey Tail highly as an agent to revitalize the spirit and vital energy.

Medicinal benefits

Turkey tail contain some of the highest levels of beta-glucans of all mushrooms, which can help keep our immune systems healthy when used over an extended period of time. Protein-bound polysaccharides (PBP) found in Turkey Tail have the most research-backed immune-supportive effects.

It’s not all unofficial either; a pharmaceutically manufactured and approved drug called Krestin PSK has been isolated from Turkey Tail. The drug is used as an adjunct to chemo and radio therapy and helps cancer patients to rebuid their immune systems after treatment.

General Benefits

Turkey Tail can help prevent and treat cold and flu – long known to stave off infection, including those associated with the common cold or flu.
Helps modulate the immune system, helping to fight infections, illness and diseases.
Can offer support to chemo patients.
For more than 30 years, medicinal mushrooms have been used as adjuncts to standard cancer treatments in Japan and China.
Helps Treat Human Papilloma Virus – According to a study of patients with gum disease who tested positive for oral HPV, 88 percent of the patients who received both turkey tail and reishi mushrooms showed positive results after two months of treatment.
Aids in Digestion – Turkey Tail mushrooms contain perfect prebiotics that assist the microbiome.
Like most mushrooms, turkey tails also contain high levels of of fibre which can help promote healthy digestion.

Growing Turkey Tail

Turkey Tail mushrooms

Growing mushrooms at home is a fun thing to do, provided you have a little patience. Turkey Tail are medicinal mushrooms, not too hard to grow at home, but not quick growers.

Like many other mushrooms, Turkey Tail mycelium grows well on cereal grains like rye, wheat, or millet at room temperature, which growers then use to inoculate sawdust. The sawdust works well as a fruiting substrate if packed into grow bags or used to inoculate logs for longer-term mushroom-growing projects. When growing on grain, it’s best to avoid letting jars or bags sit around for too long after full colonization because the mycelium will bind everything together very tightly, making it hard to separate the grain.

It can fruit from its final substrate (logs or sawdust blocks) in temperatures down to 10-15°C but best results occur at around 25°C. A good procedure would be to use a sterilised mixture of sawdust and rice bran (ratio of 90:10) in a grow bag. The bag can be incubated at between 23 and 27°C. Once your bag is fully colonized, the temperature can be maintained at the same level, with relative humidity at between 80 to 85% and with light applied for 10-12 hours per day.

When harvesting wild turkey tail mushrooms, you will need to dry them out and grind them into a powder yourself ready for use. Dry them as soon as possible to prevent mould from developing. You can use a dehydrator at around 46°C and it will take about 24 hours to fully dehydrate an average-sized turkey tail mushroom. You can then crush the dried mushrooms into a powder using a food processor or mortar and pestle. The powder can then be put into capsules ready for taking as a supplement or used to make tea. Unlike store-bought supplements, you’ll actually know what’s in the capsules!

Dried or powdered turkey tail mushrooms can be stored indefinitely as long as they’re stored in an airtight container that’s kept in a cool dark place.