Cool Fungi

[Ganoderma]

Sorry to steal Raccoons main idea...but fungi are a very large part of our lives. so shall we put together some cool fungi?

 

there are lots of super interesting ones like penicillin, magic mushrooms, gourmet and other funky fungi. I would also like to introduce people to this website. Mushroom Information Center - MushWorld - 　this is one of the best mushroom sites I have found. Sign up is free, and there are LOTS of articles from medical science, to growing to decomposing etc etc…. They also help setup less fortunate folks and train them how to grow fungi and use this business to support themselves….very cool in my book!

 

I will start with my favorite. Ganoderma sp.

 

Ganoderma lives in most areas of the northern hemisphere, Europe, Asia and the Americas (Canada too). It usually eats dead deciduous trees, but some eat conifers as well. The small amount I grew was from oak.

 

It is being studied for all sorts of things such as anti bacterial, and anti-viral. I could talk about it but I am not smart enough. Here is an article describing it.

Full article here: Welcome to Mush-World.Com

ABSTRACT: It is believed that human beings have constantly searched for new substances that can improve biological functions and make people fitter and healthier. Ganoderma lucidum (Curt.:Fr.) P. Karst, have been recognized for many centuries in China and other parts of Asia. During the last two decades, there has been a sharp increase in the level of commercial interest in G. lucidum products, not only in Asian countries but also in North America and Europe. Current world production of this mushroom is around 6,000 tonnes, half of which comes from China. Latest available estimates put the annual value of G. lucidum products worldwide at more than US$ 2.5 billion. This is expected to increase even further once the attributed medicinal properties are confirmed in human intervention trials. The application of modern analytical techniques has revealed the mushroom to contain numerous bioactive compounds including polysaccharides, triterpenes, adenosines, and immunomodulatory proteins. Many of these compounds have anticancer and antitumor properties that appear to be based on an enhancement of the host immune systems rather than on a direct cytocidal effect. Further expansion of the market of G lucidum products will require the introduction of more reproducible protocols for mushroom production and downstream processing to improve quality control and ensure enduring public trust.

 

i spelled cool wrong :naughty:

[InfiniteNow]

i spelled cool wrong :confused:

No worries... All better now. :hihi:

 

 

I just found out where you found your username in the article you quoted! Very cool. I look forward to the dialogues in these threads.

[Cedars]

Probably the coolest mushroom I ever found was one that grew along my grandpas pond, in holes along the shore. I dont know what animal dug the holes but would guess mink. Small holes we could just get our arms in (I was around 10 when we discovered these treasures. A big mushroom with a cap. Probably about 4-5 inches tall with a 3-4 inch across cap. They were color crayon yellow, the bottom of the cap was a cream color. When you broke the caps into pieces, the exposed areas would turn from an off white/cream color to either a beautiful purple or dark blue. They turned to a tan mush with time in the air after we pulled them out. Within an hour or so there was none of the bright color left and most of the mushroom had turned to a melted mess.

 

Someone in a chat room was a mushroom expert and identified it for me. I thought they were rare until that point, because I have never found them growing anywhere else. But according to the link this guy supplied, they are not a rare mushroom at all. I dont think they were poisonous either as I try to remember what the link said. Doing a quick "yellow mushrooms" and "tunnels" search in google didnt help me find them again today.

[Ganoderma]

perhaps shaggy mane mushroom? these have been foudn to grow through concrete and ashphalt sidewalks/roads....yet liek you say they turn to mush quite quickly. do they look like the ones? they look like a tufted cone, if that amkes sense.

[Cedars]

perhaps shaggy mane mushroom? these have been foudn to grow through concrete and ashphalt sidewalks/roads....yet liek you say they turn to mush quite quickly. do they look like the ones? they look like a tufted cone, if that amkes sense.

 

I looked up a picture of the shaggy mane mushroom and those are not it.

 

The cap (on the one I was describing) was the flat type, very broad rather than the high tufted cone on these. They werent the button type of cap either. I searched a bit again yesterday after looking up the shaggy mane mushroom (which looks like another type I have seen around here), but again, my search came up short.

 

I am going to keep trying to find something similar.

[Cedars]

Long but easy reading covering some things about mushroom hunting, from 1998:

 

Outside Magazine Does the Mushroom Love Its Plucker?

 

Couple of quotes from above link:

 

"Mushroom spores that land in the right circumstances germinate and eventually produce thread-like cells that combine into a network of filaments called a mycelium. The mycelium is the part of the fungus that eats, tunneling its way through organic matter and digesting as it goes. It is usually too minute to be seen, but when it's concentrated in one place it looks like a feathery white dusting. For some mushrooms, the individual mycelium can span hundreds of yards across. When the mycelium is well established, or when it has consumed the available nutrients, some of its thread-like cells come together in small masses of tissue that develop into fruiting bodies ” what we call mushrooms ” and the cycle begins again. "

 

"Last year the Deschutes and Winema National Forests in Oregon made $330,000 from matsutake-picking permits alone. And the mushrooms that were harvested in Oregon and sent air-freight to Japan brought tens of millions of dollars to the state. Millions from mushrooms! "

 

 

Super deadly mushrooms:

 

Amanita - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

List of Amanita species - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Ganoderma]

The PNW (BC canada, washington, oregon, idaho USA) is definatly a gold mine for mushrooms. The price has dropped for some remakebly though. take teh pine mushroom for example. they are often graded on a 1-5 scale. 1 is the best where the cap has not yet seperated from the stalk and is in great condition, 5 is a mature mushroom (aka not as long a shelf life). anyway people used to get $30 give or take, sometimes far more, for 1 pound of #1. the last year i bothered to go mushroom picking it was $9. people used to be able to literally go out for 2 months in the winter and pick their years income (really hard work, but good money). Now, i think most ahve given it up as a career, certainly the people i knew gave it up. this mushroom cannot be cultivated, so it all relies on the pickers.

 

My favourites, the chanterelles, are also next to worthless (i was getting $1.50 a pound for white and $3 a pount for yellow in BC).

 

anyway dotn want to stray too far from the topic, they are still amazing, just not worth much coin compared to before.

[Racoon]

The PNW (BC canada, washington, oregon, idaho USA) is definatly a gold mine for mushrooms. The price has dropped for some remakebly though. take teh pine mushroom for example. they are often graded on a 1-5 scale. 1 is the best where the cap has not yet seperated from the stalk and is in great condition, 5 is a mature mushroom (aka not as long a shelf life). anyway people used to get $30 give or take, sometimes far more, for 1 pound of #1. the last year i bothered to go mushroom picking it was $9. people used to be able to literally go out for 2 months in the winter and pick their years income (really hard work, but good money). Now, i think most ahve given it up as a career, certainly the people i knew gave it up. this mushroom cannot be cultivated, so it all relies on the pickers.

 

My favourites, the chanterelles, are also next to worthless (i was getting $1.50 a pound for white and $3 a pount for yellow in BC).

 

anyway dotn want to stray too far from the topic, they are still amazing, just not worth much coin compared to before.

 

Problem now is that illegal mexicans, and asians (cambodians,vietnamese) go prancing around our National forests and pick all the mushrooms, but don't shake out spores, or leave any behind! :evil: :D

Bad! :D

 

Was it you Ganod who posted the video on Cordyceps a little while back?

Absolutely amazing fungi, with beneficial properties to man and woman.

 

I am going mushrooming after the weather warms a bit and and a few rains fall.

I have gone around the neighborhood identifying as many 'shrooms as I could, but nothing special, or edible.. some Inky caps, but I wasn't going to eat them ;)

[gribbon]

Problem now is that illegal mexicans, and asians (cambodians,vietnamese) go prancing around our National forests and pick all the mushrooms, but don't shake out spores, or leave any behind!

 

Does anyone know: is there a particularly strong market for Fungi in the U.S?

[Ganoderma]

there is a huge market in the US, but nothing will touch most of the asian markets! there are lots of pages listing various states/provinces and countries and their mushroom "worth".

 

i dont know if its so much who is picking them and who shakes spores. its all about picking technique. in general it is best to cut the mushroom to leave the mycelium in good health. with things like pine mushrooms they wont buy them if cut (because they wont last long enough to sell). you must pull and twist, i can only assume this puts a lot of pressure on the specie.

 

so you found some Coprinus sp? you can eat certain sp. but they say you will get quite ill if you drink alcohol and eat the mushrooms. frankly, i dont want to risk that.

 

where abouts are you located? for many edibles and "others" fall is usually the best time to look. late winter/early spring has provided a few edibles (oysters, chanterells, shaggy manes) and some "others". That was in SW BC canada. I'm told NW washington is the place to be! must be all that rain.

 

I have always loved oyster mushrooms, and have always been interested in aquiring some spores of the PINK oyster!

http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/feb102001/337.pdf

photos: Sporeworks Mushroom Gallery :: Pleurotus var. : Oyster Mushrooms

 

below is the post i meant to post before but my internet screwed up (good thing i wrote it in word).

 

Perhaps look into Russula sp. they are very common on the west coast (sorry i know little about hunting out your way).

 

About the amanitas, they are one of the cooler ones as well. Many are deadly but there is one rather special one. Amanita muscaria (sp???). Fly agaric its called. i think most North Americans and Europeans know this one. its a rather big one with a bulb, veil and bright red cap with varying amounts of white stuff on them. When heated one of the toxic chemicals changes its makeup into another chemical (i am horrible with scientific names, forgive me) to make a hallucinogenic mushroom. the show "Weird Nature" has this. up north the reindeer will consume it (the chemicals also flow through the pee, and some people drink the reindeer pee instead of eating the mushroom). The part i found interesting is the fact they claim this mushroom enhances the reds in vision and sensations of flying (i dont know about the red thing but i have on good authority the flying sensation of lack of gravity is apparent). they suggested this may perhaps be the birth of santa.

 

Anyway i thought that was interesting. but it should be known people do die from eating various amanita mushrooms and the taxonomy of this group is pathetic, so dont eat any. there is another one that looks similar that is considered a delicacy. in fact i find both to taste quite good, but there is always a risk you got the wrong one. It used to be one of the main mushrooms that sent people to the emergency room.

 

Another mushroom i would like to bring up is the commonly eaten Shitake. Aside from being a multi million dollar industry it is special to me more because it helped pioneer the mushroom growing industry. The Japanese and Chinese especially did some good work in getting these guys to fruit under “artificial” conditions. You can probably google some old pictures of huge logs setup like a small teepee that grew mushrooms. Pretty interesting. I am also a little curious how big an impact the mushroom industry has had on the forests. Many require dead wood logs to grow…

 

This is where other pioneers have made big contributions such as growing them on straw, leaves, or even paper. Check this link out to see how they grew oyster mushrooms were grown on spent banana leaves. Others like this are also being done, with waste material from rice, corn etc…

 

 

Use of soyabean straw as an ingenious but cheap substrate

Welcome to Mush-World.Com

 

I. Outline of Research Theme

 

Third world countries like INDIA have shown enormous growth in technology and manpower, but empowerment of the poor still needs attention. Though mushroom farming is a sustainable and low capital venture, but owing to geographical and demographic variations a strict substrate regime may not be suitable. Thus it is important to workout sustainable and better yielding substrates with respect to the particular regions. In attempt to do the same we have come upon the soybean straw as an alternative substrate for production of Pleurotus sajor-caju a commercially important mushroom. The substrates with more nitrogen content imply upon better yield, which will be tested in this work frame also keeping in mind the cost aspects of the same. In the year 2002-3 the soybean production accounted for an 8200 MT at the rate of 796 kg/Hector. It is easily available and hence will be surveyed for the other merits, it withholds. The out come of this research will be directly passed on to the end users by respective implementing authorities.

 

 

Naturally composted rice straw as substrate for Pleurotus sajor caju (that’s a type of oyster mushroom)

Welcome to Mush-World.Com

 

P. sajor caju is traditionally cultivated in the Philippines on a sawdust - enriched medium. Most of the large scale growers in the country utilized this technology. However, in the countryside, where most small scale growers are located, has an abundant source of alternative substrate in the form of rice straw. These mushroom growers who are also rice farmers and producers of V. volvacea, have adapted the mushroom technology that the Center for Tropical Mushroom Research and Development has developed. This technology makes use of rice straw which has been left in the field for sometime. The naturally decomposed rice straw cannot be used for the bed - type production of V. volvacea due to the presence of competing microorganisms like Coprinus comatus. Thus in order to diversify the production of mushroom in the countryside and promote intensive production of agricultural wastes for mushroom cultivation, we are recommending this simplified procedure of producing P. sajor caju.

Hereunder is the pictorial guide on the use of naturally composted rice straw as substrate for P. sajor caju. In this technology, we do not recommend nutritional amendments of substrates for the microbial decomposers to compost the substrates since rice straw has already been acted upon by the initial microbial decomposers and now ready for the utilization of the mycelia of P. sajor caju. We have experienced that 500 g of spawn could produce 125 to 200 g of fruiting bodies. Mycelia of P. sajor caju could colonize the whole bag in two to three weeks after inoculation and the bags are ready for fruiting in 3 to 4 weeks after complete mycelial colonization.

 

 

The Suitability and Economic Feasibility of Using Spent Banana Leaves from Straw Mushroom Culture in the Production of Oyster Mushroom

Welcome to Mush-World.Com

 

ABSTRACT

Bench scale and pilot scale trials were conducted to test the suitability and economic feasibility of using spent banana leaves (SBL) from straw mushroom (Volvariella volvacea) culture as primary substrate in the production of oyster mushroom (Pleurotus sajor caju). Different substrate formulations of SBL with lime and varying amounts of rice bran, and NPK fertilizer were evaluated, together with the standard sawdust rice bran formulation (SRB) for their ability to support mycelial growth and fruiting of oyster mushroom. Mycelial growth did not vary among the treatments. The yield of oyster mushroom on SBL substrates with varying amounts of rice bran and NPK ranged from 254 to 275 grams per one-kg bag. This yield was lower than that obtained from SRB (301 g per bag) but was sufficient to generate potential profit after deducting the cost of producing the bags from the cash value of harvest.

Pilot scale trial in two stages, namely, production of oyster mushroom bags, and production of mushroom from these bags, demonstrated the economic feasibility of oyster mushroom production from SBL substrates. One cooperator produced 1008 bags, 944 of which were good, and 64 were contaminated. The good bags were sold and cost and return analysis showed that the bag producer earned a profit of P 2188 with a 41% return on investment (ROI). Subsequent production of mushroom from these bags and marketing of the product generated a profit of P3833 with 37% ROI.

The potential use of knowledge/technology gained from this research is discussed and a doable approach to extend the technology to potential end users is presented.

 

Take care.

 

 

The PNW (BC canada, washington, oregon, idaho USA) is definatly a gold mine for mushrooms. The price has dropped for some remakebly though. take teh pine mushroom for example. they are often graded on a 1-5 scale. 1 is the best where the cap has not yet seperated from the stalk and is in great condition, 5 is a mature mushroom (aka not as long a shelf life). anyway people used to get $30 give or take, sometimes far more, for 1 pound of #1. the last year i bothered to go mushroom picking it was $9. people used to be able to literally go out for 2 months in the winter and pick their years income (really hard work, but good money). Now, i think most ahve given it up as a career, certainly the people i knew gave it up. this mushroom cannot be cultivated, so it all relies on the pickers.

 

My favourites, the chanterelles, are also next to worthless (i was getting $1.50 a pound for white and $3 a pount for yellow in BC).

 

anyway dotn want to stray too far from the topic, they are still amazing, just not worth much coin compared to before.

[Cedars]

Morel mushrooms are the biggie the pickers around here swoon over. I have found these a few times and I should pay attention to the elm that died in my yard a few years ago and sse if any of these pop up. Growing up a nearby park was known for its shrooms and while riding my horse there (illegal) I used to run into an old timer with his bag of shrooms there (also illegal). We would just smile and nod to each other. Both of us used this park for these reasons long before it became park and felt we had 'native rights'.

 

The Great Morel Home Page

 

 

Page with other edibles:

 

Edible Mushrooms

 

Page with some of the poisionous shrooms:

 

Poisonous Mushrooms

[Ganoderma]

In fact governments spend a fair bit of money researching mushroom profitability. the British Columbian government has setup very good maps and such outlining elevation, forest fires, tree types, water etc etc. morels i believe like areas that have had a fire, especially in the alder family and areas. i have never bothered to pick them for some reason.

[Ganoderma]

arg please delete, double post.....my computer skills are really getting bad.

[wine]

Did you guys know that fungi, intoduced into areas of toxic spills, regenerate the land and rid it of all the toxins.

There isn't even a trace of toxins left in the fungi when they're done.

It's amazing.

[Ganoderma]

thats cool eh! check Paul Stemets for mor einformation.

 

I have much respect for this guy!

 

his site:Fungi Perfecti®: gourmet and medicinal mushrooms

 

a book review for your topic: http://www.beyondpesticides.org/documents/Review%20of%20Mycelium%20Running.pdf

 

There are a few places where Mycelium Running is directly relevant to efforts to prevent

and eliminate the spread of toxic chemicals. Stamets and others have been working with fungi

that feed on insects, and he has figured out a way to grow fungi that delay their spore formation

and actually attract the insect to the fungus, thus breaking through an obstacle in using fungi to

protect homes from carpenter ants and termites. However, in doing so, Stamets says his

philosophy “is not to wage war against the insect kingdom but to enlist fungal allies for the

intelligent, natural, and localized control of targeted insects .... We seek balance, not

extinction.”

Stamets also talks about the use of fungi to detoxify toxic chemicals, and his list of

chemicals digestible by fungi includes dioxins, organophosphates, PCBs, and many wood

preservative chemicals, including pentachlorophenol. He also tells how filters of mushroom

spawn can remove pathogens, nutrients, and toxins from runoff.

[wine]

Yes! I have listened to one of his lectures. Absolutely Fascinating.