What, specifically - in terms of species - are you talking about? Is it a wood eating mushroom of a carbohydrate eating mushroom?

Every species has it's own peculiar requirements colonization, incubation, etc. and that is why you might be getting some conflicting information.

I have a little bit of experience with oysters and this fall I'm going to try my hand at shittake, but they're require a completely different approach so I'm working on the research phase at the moment.

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In a nutshell, figure out what species you have in mind, and if I can help - with my limited experience - i will.

Well it seems like there's pretty much only shitake and oyster for non coniferous wood, so those were the two I was looking for. and I'm talking about the plugs that you bore holes into the wood and stick in. Any experience you could share would be welcome. Actually, I might have to push up my plan as I might have to take down part of a tree on my property so I'll have nice logs to use for this experiment. if so, the more infomation I have the better.

my father grows shiitake, i'll ask him for specifics.

an easier way to do it, instead of plugs is to... and keep in mind this is a 10 cent tour and there's a lot more involved, especially in regards to sterility...

Innoculate jars of rye grain until the mycelium colonizes the jars. While that's happening (couple weeks) go buy some hardwood dowels and cut them into series of 1"-2" lengths and soak them in distilled water mixed with a little bit of coffee - that's my thing, personal tip if you will.

Then when the jars are "almost" fully colonized, take a tub and place some clean, shredded cardboard and your cut dowels and throw it all into the tub together. Let that stew in there for another couple weeks and the mycelium will begin to colonize the wooden dowels.

When this happens, and assuming you still don't have any contaminates, take the dowels and nail them onto your log.

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Like I said, that's the nutshell version and there's a lot more to it but it's a LOT++ simpler than having to drill a thousand plugs into your log.. and you have the added benefit of knowing if you've got a contaminate on your dowels instead of waiting until you've contaminated your log - which isn't as easy to come by.

The sterilization portions of the process - which I left out are more definitely the most important parts but would take FOREVER++ to go through.

Sites like shroomery.org, although dubious in nature, do have rather extensive resources if you don't mind wading through it.

I am also just starting to grow mushrooms outside ( I have grown mushrooms inside before ) Is there a FAQ section specifically for growing mushrooms outdoors ?

Here are some shrooms grown from spawn stuffed into logs. Pictured from top are shiitake, elm oyster, and finally reishi (medicinal).

Here is a link that might be useful: mushrooms in logs

nice bstruss. did you grow those yourself? care to share instructions? :)