The mushroom at the end of the world

  • staying alive for every species requires livable collaboration
  • scalability is not an ordinary feature of nature and requires a lot of work
  • expect interactions between scalable and non-scalable projects
  • The bulk of the work is threading through the non-scalable to reach the scalable

On the middle man

  • a necessary consummate translator within the supply chain
  • he maintains a mental map of who needs what
  • helps efficiently route the inventory to the most suitable individual

On Freedom

  • it is the concept of not having to be a cog in the machine.
  • it does not necessarily lead to great economic outcome for the pursuing individual
  • it allows the individual the ability to freely allocate the use of his time

The matsutake mushroom

  • along most parts of supply chain it symbolizes a social exchange which strengthens social ties
  • it is only during the sorting when the mushroom is looked at purely as a commodity

Man and nature

  • The satoyama revitalization
    • man is part of nature
    • man’s disturbance to nature is part of nature
  • unintentional design is the interplay of man and nature
    • animal/human activities/disturbance
    • pine tree growth
    • matsutake mushroom colonization and growth

Insights from visit to far west fungi farm

On mushroom

  • Get woods chips from petco
  • Alder or ashpen shavings
  • 6 inch to a foot at the bottom
  • Every few months 2 inch on the top
  • use Sundew, a carnivores plants to get rid of insects
  • Go to blue bottle cafe for burlap sacks
  • Don’t soak more spawns for more than 12 hours each time
  • If too dry soak, then keep in air for a day or two
  • Drop some clay in water to detect chlorine in water used for soaking wood and spawn

Meetups

Useful resources

  • LibGen.IO – site where free books can be downloaded
  • sci-hub.tw – site where free research papers can be downloaded
  • www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing – site for horse racing statistics
  • Far West Fungi Farm

Key take aways from California Mushrooms, the comprehensive identification guide

California Mushrooms

High level overview

The key features to use for mushroom identification

The steps prior to consuming

  • See mushroom
  • Collect entire mushroom
    • cap
    • stipe
    • sections of the substrate / what it grows on
  • note terrain its growing at
  • make spore print overnight
  • consult guidebook
  • search for competing lookalikes that might be poisonous
  • decide to eat it
  • post eating – check for symptom of poisoning
    • first symptoms can occur as early as 20mins into consumption
    • if first symptom occurs only after 6 hours of consumption visit emergency room – you might have consumed an Amanitin containing variant and are about to  DIE!!
      • Galerina marginata
      • Amanita phalloides, the Death Cap
      • Amanita ocreata, the Destroying Angel

These ones will kill you for sure

 

Book Summary – Mycelium running

Usages

  • antibiotics
  • increasing immune system’s natural defense
    • potential cure for HIV
  • environment management
    • mycofiltration: reduce risk of infection from sewage and effects of oil spill
    • bioaccumulation: consolidates heavy metal
    • Pest management: Cordyceps Metarhizium versus termites

Substrates

  • Corn corbs

Insights

  • diversity in fungal population directly correlated with strength and health of any ecosystem
  • sensitive to dry contact. 1 layer of skin

References

  • Growing gourmet and medicinal mushrooms, Paul Stamets
  • The mushroom cultivator, Paul Stamets
  • Medicinal mushrooms, Christopher Hobbs
  • MycoMedicinals, Paul Stamets
  • All the rain promises and more
  • Mushrooms demystified
  • Oyster mushroom cultivation, MushWorld
  • Shiitake Mushroom Cultivation, MushWorld
  • One Straw Revolution, Masanobu Fukuoka
  • Permaculture: A practical guide for sustainable future, Mollison