MycoGnosis

Ideas for a Local Mushroom Working Group

Posted on January 2, 2017 by MycognosticSeptember 11, 2017

I want to get some like minded people from my area together to share our interest in fungi, and maybe work together on some projects. Somehow calling it a “Mycological Society” or “Association” doesn’t sound right. So for now I’m going with a “Working Group”, as I hope it will be activity oriented, and proactive in the larger community. Below I’ve jotted down some ideas on the subject:

Why a Mushroom Working Group?

Fungi are essential to life on Earth, but strangely, until quite recently they have largely been ignored by western science, medicine and agriculture. Now, as a result of recent research, a resurgence of traditional knowledge, and the efforts of citizen scientists and home cultivators, the value of these species is being recognized as a source of nutrition, medicine, ecological remediation, soil building, recycling and more.

Fungi are a part of every ecosystem, and many mycophiles (people who love mushrooms) get a great deal of pleasure just observing, photographing, collecting and identifying the various species that they encounter on a walk in a forest, field, park, or their backyard. For many the “use” of a particular fungus is less important than its identity and its interrelationship with its environment.

Others see that our forests contain a wealth of food and medicine just waiting to be harvested. Others use techniques for growing mushrooms indoors and out that they are constantly refining. Strains of fungi are being developed for countless applications, from recycling specific waste products and breaking down toxic compounds to attacking specific diseases.

Just as fungi, and their actions in the environment, are diverse, so are the ways in which people engage with them: collectors, foragers, farmers, woodlot manages, gardeners, herbalists, restaurateurs, environmentalists, landscapers, and home cultivators all bring their unique perspective to mycology. A Mycological Working Group can benefit all these people as the communication will help increase the successes of everyone involved. Plus it’s more fun in a group.

What can a Mycological Working Group Do?

Work on projects together
and lend support to each others’ projects. These can include indoor and outdoor activities such as:
-Forage for edible and medicinal mushrooms
-Forage to identify/collect/photograph all types of mushrooms
-Inoculate stumps in harvested/de-forested areas to accelerate reforestation
-Grow mushrooms on farm/garden/kitchen waste
-Use fungi to help clean up land or water that is contaminated
-Create permaculture “forest gardens”, incorporating mushrooms and other food plants
-Combine mushroom beds within vegetable gardens
-Grow mushrooms indoors in containers or outdoors on logs or beds of wood chips
-Collect/propagate/preserve a library of mushroom cultures
-Build a lab for sterile procedures
-Build an incubator to grow cultures
-Build a room for fruiting large quantities of mushrooms

Share knowledge and skills.
A diverse group as mentioned above brings with it a variety of experience from which all can benefit. Below is a list of things that can be learned and shared.
-Mushroom Identification
-Laboratory techniques
-Culinary skills
-Food Preservation, tinctures and extracts
-Medicinal and nutritional knowledge
-Gardening/farming skills
-Animal husbandry
-Forest management
-Chainsaw/wood chipper skills
-Landscaping
-Construction
-Heating and Air Conditioning
-Artistic skills (dyeing, paper and textile making, sculpture)
-Research

Share resources.
A group can take advantage of the economy of scale to save money buying supplies and sharing spaces together. Some of the resources a group might purchase together include mushroom cultures and spawn, consumable lab supplies like disposable petri dishes and nutrient media, or grow bags for indoor cultivation.

Even better is sharing resources already in your possession on group projects. Facilities can be shared, like unused indoor spaces for meeting, growing, and storage. Public and private outdoor spaces like developed and undeveloped forested areas, gardens, yards, and empty lots. Members of the group can also share growing substrates they may have access to, like farm/garden waste, wood chips, compost, manure, coffee grounds, spent grain from brewing and more.

Many members will have the specialized tools that go with their skills and areas of expertise:
-Books
-Chain saw/wood chipper
-Pressure cooker
-Rototiller/gardening tools
-Tractor
-Construction and fabrication tools
-Lab/medical equipment
-Mason jars/bottles

Welcome to Mycognosis

Posted on January 2, 2017 by MycognosticNovember 18, 2019

Fungi are essential to life on Earth, but strangely, until quite recently they have largely been ignored by western science, medicine and agriculture.

Now, as a result of recent research, a resurgence of traditional knowledge, and the efforts of citizen scientists and home cultivators, the value of these species is being recognized as a source of nutrition, medicine, ecological remediation, soil building, recycling and more.

This site is dedicated to learning and sharing information about Fungi, what part they play in nature, and how we can benefit from integrating them into our lives, our communities and our environment.

Myco-medicine with Tradd Cotter

Posted on December 27, 2016 by MycognosticSeptember 11, 2017

Tradd Cotter explains how his patented process will enable us to make personal, specifically targeted, antibiotic, antiviral and anticancer drugs. You can see lots more of Todd’s videos and buy his book at Chelsea Green Publishing. The video below starts at the part where he describes his discovery, but the whole video is worth watching if you have the time.

White Elm Oyster Flush Slideshow

Posted on December 13, 2016 by MycognosticSeptember 11, 2017

The Great Elm Oyster (Hypsizygus ulmarius) Mix-up

Posted on December 13, 2016 by MycognosticSeptember 11, 2017

In early October my partner mentioned they had seen a solitary mushroom emerging from a wound in an elm tree on our local trail. This especially interested me because of the Muskoka Mushroom Mystery. I took my camera up there to get some pictures on site before collecting the specimen to clone for possible cultivation.

With help from the FaceBook Mushroom ID Forum and a look at the Mushroom Expert website it seemed we had found an Elm Oyster (Hypsizygus ulmarius). Mystery solved. Perhaps, but this raised another question for me, because I thought I knew the Elm Oyster.

I had bought some Elm Oyster (H ulmarius) liquid culture from Gallboys on Amazon in 2015 and I have been growing it quite successfully ever since. I find them particularly suited to indoor fruiting. Where the Blue and Pearl Oysters tend to produce “coral-like” fruits in my FC, the Elms produce big fleshy, but delicate, fruitbodies. Too tender,and quick to dry out, they would not do well in shipping or shelf life; but nice eating. The trouble is, they look like the mushrooms in the picture on the right. I wonder if these are Pleurotus ulmarius, a name which is sometimes mentioned as synonymous or outdated.

It’s not just that Gallboys have mixed up their cultures (they do also sell what they call White Elm Oysters – P ulmarius which I have not seen). A search of the internet for “Hypsizygus ulmarius” turns up about a 50/50 split between pictures of the two distinct species. The divide is pretty clearly between growers and field mycologists.

No less than Paul Stamets has touted the H ulmarius on his site and trademarked the name Hypsizygus ulmarius Garden Patch (HUG) on a PDF which depicts a Pleurotus-like oyster. Studies have shown this mushroom to be a great companion for vegetables. The study is mentioned in Mycelium Running and specs for growing it are featured in his Growing Gourmet & Medicinal Mushrooms. But how can these studies have gotten so far with the species misnamed?

I’m leaving the comments open on this post because I’d really like to hear from some of you who are in the know. I’ll be posting a links on a couple of FB pages like MycTor and Mushroom ID in hope of getting some feed back.

Thanks in advance, fellow Mycophiles!

The One that (almost) Got Away Pt.2

Posted on December 12, 2016 by MycognosticSeptember 11, 2017

In early October my partner mentioned they had seen a solitary mushroom emerging from a wound in an elm tree on our local trail. I was interested, of course, but all the more so because it reminded me of the Muskoka Mystery Mushroom which had I found in similar habitat, but in a primordial stage that made it hard to ID. I immediately headed up there with my camera. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake as I did on the Cain Foray and just rely on my iPhone.

Long story short, it’s a very good candidate for the MMM. The horizontal stem emerging from deep in a wound. The very firm striated stipe. This was a very mature specimen quite dry and so no exudate, but that is not unexpected. Unfortunately I only have my memory to go on as the pictures of the MMM are not good.

Puffball Personal Pizzas

Posted on November 6, 2016 by MycognosticSeptember 24, 2017

Here is a use for those pre-fried and frozen puffball slices. After thawing and separating them, I baked them on a rack in the oven at 350F while I prepared a tomato sauce and toppings. Then I dressed them and put them back in until they looked done. Served in this case with a side of borscht.

New Improved RS Steam Heat Pasteurizer

Posted on November 6, 2016 by MycognosticSeptember 11, 2017

After using my Richard Simmons Steam Heat Pasteurizer a few times I could see some room for improvement. For one steam leaked out around the steam unit and heat was escaping all over. I found another bin at the Salvation Army and put the hole thing inside it and insulated with low expanding spray foam.

Substrate now heats up to 164F in about .5 of an hour with three elements on. Then after .5 hour on one burner, the temp was 180 F. At that point the unit was turned off and left the substrate temp was still over 165 F over a hour later.

: Cut out an opening in the new bin

: Checking the fit on the steamer

: Cover steamer and line bin with plastic

: The bin from the previous version of the pasteurizer fits inside

: Use minimum expanding foam

: Fill the gap with foam. The plastic should probably be perforated as the foam needs air to cure.

: Trim the foam from around the steamer and cut out the bottom of the inner bin

: The foam expands so use sparingly. I used about 3 cans for this project

: An electric carving knife is a great tool for trimming the extra foam, also from the Sally Ann

: Insulating the lid

: Water helps the surface cure and separate from the plastic

: Cover the slightly cured foam with wet plastic

: fit the lid while the foam is still soft

: Ready to go

: Load up with substrate loose or in bags

: It needed a weight to stop the top from curling and popping off, maybe some plywood with the foam on it will be better

Medicinal Fungal Finds

Posted on September 23, 2016 by MycognosticSeptember 11, 2017

Healing Fungi Thrive on Damaged Land

My Mate and I took our dog (“Questor”, named for the question mark on his forehead), for a walk in the woods across the road today. This is actually scrubby bush compared to Temagami and Muskoka, only a couple of decades since it was last clear-cut or grazed, and that is evident in the lack of fungal life there.

The only things we found turned out to be medicinal mushrooms. There are few old birches back there, and I understand they are concidered to be healing trees. Several of the mushrooms that grow on them are highly prized for their healing properties. The foremost among these is chaga (Inonotus obliquus) but we didn’t run into that. I did find the nicest freshest Birch PolyPore ( Piptoporus betulinus ), Tinder Fungus ( Fomes fomentarius ) and Turkey Tail ( Tramates versicolor ). Maybe these fungi are healing the land.

I have T. versicolor growing back at our place. But gathered a few Tinders, and the Birch polypores. A couple of the branches of birch were quite sound and portable, so we brought them back, to keep with our other inoculated logs and perhaps to use to noc up more birch in the spring.

: Questor and the Bear Scarer

: Trametes versicolor – also known as Coriolus versicolor and Polyporus versicolor – is a common polypore mushroom found throughout the world.

: Birch Polypore and Fomes fomentarius (commonly known as the tinder fungus, false tinder fungus, hoof fungus, tinder conk, tinder polypore or ice man fungus) When I presented a specimen of this to WES he marked it “punk”

: Birch Polypore sliced for drying. Apparently it’s an anti-inflammatory, I could use some of that.Or they could be used for Ötzi The Ice Man style band-aids.

: A crock pot on the wood stove with birch polypore, chaga, maitake, and shiitake makes a bitter tonic.

I’m doing research into the history and uses of these fungi, but for now you could check out Ötzi The Ice Man. Apparently 5316 years ago he had two of these mushrooms in his survival kit as he struggled to escape his pursuers and perished in a blizzard:

In addition, among Ötzi’s possessions were berries, two birch bark baskets, and two species of polypore mushrooms with leather strings through them. One of these, the birch fungus, is known to have anthelmintic properties, and was probably used for medicinal purposes.^[39] The other was a type of tinder fungus, included with part of what appeared to be a complex firelighting kit. The kit featured pieces of over a dozen different plants, in addition to flint and pyrite for creating sparks.

Puffball Cooking and Preservation

Posted on September 23, 2016 by MycognosticSeptember 11, 2017

Thanks to friend and neighbor Silas for giving us these beautiful Giant Puffballs (Calvatia gigantea). Chef Dwayne put the idea of a French Toast style puffball in my head at the Cain Foray and as Silas brought these by in the morning I thought I’d try out a puffball brunch before getting the rest ready for preserving.

Another nice sounding recipe going around is to use the puffy slices for personal pan pizzas. I’m preparing the slices for future use as such, or for burgers, or to cut up and add to stews. Also drying some, it’s all new to me, so we shall see.

Here are some pictures.Thanks to Chef Dwayne for the French Toast idea. Dwayne, if you are out there drop me a line.