Turkey tail: why this fungus is in Japanese hospitals, and what you can do with it at home

Anyone who notices dead logs in the woods knows turkey tail without knowing the name: thin, leathery fans in concentric bands of brown, grey, blue and ochre, velvety on top and white and finely perforated underneath. Trametes versicolor grows on every continent on almost any dead broadleaf wood. It is inedible in the ordinary sense, and at the same time the most researched wood fungus in the world. That calls for an explanation, and an honest line between what is established and what people hope.

Why is it in Japanese hospitals?

Because in the 1960s a protein-bound polysaccharide, PSK, was isolated from turkey tail, and since the late 1970s it has been registered in Japan as a medicine to support the treatment of certain cancers, alongside chemotherapy, not instead of it. For decades it was one of the most prescribed agents of its kind there, backed by a considerable stack of clinical research. That is a fact, and it is why turkey tail sits at the front of nearly every book on medicinal mushrooms.

What does that mean for a fungus from your own garden?

Less than the books suggest, and we would rather say so ourselves than have you find out later. PSK is a standardised extract, made from cultured mycelium under pharmaceutical conditions, in a measured dose. A tea of dried turkey tail from your dead hedge is not that. It contains some of the same compounds in an unknown quantity, and there is no research saying what such a tea does in a human being. Anyone growing turkey tail in the hope of a medicine should know that. Anyone who is ill talks to a doctor, not to a nursery. We sell plug spawn of a beautiful, tough, interesting fungus, not a treatment.

So why grow it?

For three reasons that have nothing to do with claims. First, because it is the easiest wood fungus there is: it grows on any broadleaf, including thin branches and old stumps, forgives everything and produces for years. Second, for the beauty: a fresh turkey tail in autumn, with its bands of blue and brown and its velvety edge, is one of the loveliest things that can come out of dead wood, and it stays that way dried. Third, for the tea itself, as a drink and not as a medicine: dried and simmered for half an hour it gives a slightly bitter, earthy, admittedly somewhat medicinal-tasting broth that has been drunk as a hot beverage in Asia for centuries, and that sits well in a winter tea with ginger and honey.

How do you grow turkey tail?

Like any species with plug spawn, only with fewer demands. Any fresh broadleaf log or thick branch works, beech, birch, oak, willow, ash, fruit trees; thin wood of five to ten centimetres is fine. Drill, tap in the plugs, seal with wax, lay in the shade. Turkey tail is fast: often the first fans within a year, in autumn, then every autumn again for three to five years. It tolerates drought better than almost any other species and finds an ideal spot in a dead hedge. Take care when harvesting: there are lookalikes, particularly the false turkey tail, which has similar banding but a smooth, poreless underside. True turkey tail always has fine pores underneath, three to five per millimetre, visible with a hand lens. On a log you inoculated yourself confusion is unlikely; in the woods you check.

Harvesting and drying

Harvest young, pliable specimens with a white, fresh edge; old, faded, hard fans are past their best. Cut them off, brush them clean and dry them in the oven at 50 degrees or on a radiator for a few days until hard. In a sealed jar they keep for a year. For tea: a handful of dried pieces in a litre of water, simmered gently for half an hour, strained. Keep the infusion in the fridge and drink it warm, with something to round off the bitterness.

The honest summary

Turkey tail is a magnificent, strong, indestructible fungus from which a genuine medicine has been made in Japan. That medicine is not something you buy from a nursery or make in your kitchen. What you can do: grow a log full of bands of blue and brown, enjoy it in autumn, dry it, brew a winter tea from it and know all the while that you are looking at one of the most studied organisms on earth. For us, that is reason enough to have it in the range.