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Cultivation, Miscellaneous, Montana Mushrooms News, Wild Foraging

Montana Standard Guest opinion: Montana ‘shrooms

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This is a guest opinion written in response to an earlier piece on Paul Stamets.  

http://www.mtstandard.com/articles/2009/05/15/opinion/hjjajeifhgfgif.txt

Guest opinion: Montana ‘shrooms

By Dean Robbins – 05/14/2009

Ever since The Standard published a Monday Musings column on how great mushrooms are (March 16), I’ve been wanting to add my two cents.

The importance of mushrooms in Montana can be summed up in one word: food! In a state famous for extreme weather and difficult growing conditions, we need mushrooms to produce food in short growing seasons and to lay dormant during dry spells. Mushrooms provide food for soil as a fungus that feeds plants in short, harsh growing seasons and food for people and animals living under the same adverse conditions. Our forests need them for both plants and animals.

Farming in Montana has the most to gain from mushrooms, because of unpredictable weather and marginal soil in most places. Add to this a tough economy and rising operating costs and farmers have it difficult in Montana. Mushrooms can help with extra income as well as food for the family.

They are also very adept at growing on waste and can turn waste into produce. Fungus is very useful at stabilizing, nourishing and helping to optimize the soil, allowing a farmer to produce more from less acreage. Mushrooms are also efficient, producing one pound of fresh mushrooms from every pound of dry wheat straw .They can be a great, cheap domestic food to sell or eat. All of this could help family farms financially and help make waste productive, while reducing run-off.

The forests in Montana have shallow soil and wash very easily. Along with minimal rainfall, insects and short growing seasons, our forests have a rough time recovering from natural disasters and harvesting. Our pristine waters, feeding blue ribbon trout streams as well as our drinking water, need plants to stay clean. Mushrooms, or the fungus that feeds them, stabilize soil, minimizing run-off and helping plants get a foot hold.

The importance of fungus for trees became obvious when growers took bare root pine trees to South America and they all died. It was discovered that the natural fungus these trees need to survive was missing there, and it must be present for them to live.

Mushrooms also thrive on stumps and could become a secondary income from logging operations or beetle kill stumps. Bears eat snowbank mushrooms right out of hibernation, and they are an important source of protein for them when little else is around. Deer and many forest animals also eat mushrooms.

And yes, we lowly humans also love mushrooms. They are an important part of my diet. I learned to hunt mushrooms at the knee of my grandfather, just as my grand- children learn about mushrooms with me. It is a family affair, and we love to gather a safe, wild meal. Traditions that are natural and seasonal are good for the family and important to children. In a time when most everything our youth sees is electronic and commercial, this is an activity that can bring them closer to nature.

I also think it is important to teach our youth survival and how to be self sufficient. Mushrooms can help us with that, too!

— Dean Robbins lives in Bozeman and has long been fascinated with mushrooms. Contact him via e-mail at montanamushrooms@gmail.com and visit his Web site at www.MontanaMushrooms.com.

Books, Miscellaneous, Montana Mushrooms News

Hill Botanical

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Finally made my way to Hill Botanical.

I had heard about Kris Hill’s little herb shop for some time now, but had not made it there to actually check it out. I expected to find the herb selection that I saw, but was not prepared for the mushrooms and mushroom products she had in stock. The organic Reishi that has been so illusive this past winter for me was right there on the shelf.

In talking to Kris briefly, I found that she incorporates mushrooms in her products and mixtures. Some herbalists exclude mushrooms in their practice and this has made it very hard for me to learn from them. Kris gives classes on herbs and I plan on catching some of the classes that she teaches.

I was not able to visit with Kris long enough to give a proper review of what she does, but I plan to and will report here again. Give her shop a look at 204 E. Olive Street, Bozeman and check out the website at the link on my homepage.

Kris Hill

Cultivation, Miscellaneous, Montana Mushrooms News

Oyster Mushrooms On Coffee Grounds

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I have wanted to inoculate coffee grounds with oyster mushrooms for quite awhile. With the help of the cool people at Wild Joe’s, I have managed to collect some great organic, free trade coffee grounds. The grounds are too rich to waste and the folks at Wild Joe’s  feel the same way! Oyster Mushrooms grow on almost anything, so it stands to reason they would like coffee grounds. The very strength of coffee grounds, is also their downfall.They are a perfect semi sterile substrate for growing fungus because they have been steam pasteurized. The problem with that is the quickest fungus to get to them is usually green mold. The trick to this project is going to be controlling the growing conditions to help the oysters while making the mold unhappy.When I first put the spawn in the coffee grounds, the spawn took off because it was warm in the garage and the spawn was hungry. Then I noticed the green mold creeping in, and as you see in the pictures, there is a major war going on between the mold and the oysters.

Coffee Grounds From Wild Joe'sOyster Spawn on Coffee GroundsOyster Spawn on Coffee GroundsOyster Spawn on Coffee GroundsOyster Spawn on Coffee GroundsOyster Spawn on Coffee Grounds

The little brown specks are the grain from the spawn mixture. The white spider web is the Oyster spawn growing and the green is, you guessed it, mold.At this point the project has gone outside,and neither the spawn nor the mold is happy! But I know the spawn is still growing as the temperature is just above freezing, and the mold won’t survive the cold.Hopefully the bucket will produce mushrooms. Either way the experiment has already told me that Oyster spawn does indeed like coffee grounds.

Thanx again to the awesome crew at Wild Joe’s for saving the grounds for me,and thank you Hannah for setting it up. Stop by their coffee house on Main Street in Bozeman and create some grounds for us.

Cultivation, Miscellaneous, Montana Mushrooms News

Oyster Cultivation Update

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Checked on the “Oysters growing on cornstalks” project and was excited to see life! The project had survived being outside during this cold weather.The last time I posted pictures, the oysters were starting to grow(see other posts on oyster cultivation). Then in a couple weeks the fungus gnats found the fungus and it had to go outside. At the time the weather was pretty good and I wasn’t worried too much. Well the weather turned so it lived under the deck covered with a couple small blankets. Even though I wanted to check on it, I knew it could kill or at least slow the project. This weekend it was finally warm enough I felt safe in checking on it, and took some shots of progress.

CornstalksOysters on Cornstalks

As you can see the mushrooms are coming along fine and will be producing food when the weather warms a little. Since the last shots of this project it has been below zero a few nights and has been too cold for most mushrooms. I think since the tub was covered and the fungus provided some heat of its own, it survived. Oysters are amazing!

Oysters on CornstalksOysters on Cornstalks

Oysters on CornstalksOysters on Cornstalks

As you can see they are itching to get outside.We will keep close track of this project all the way to the pan!

Books, Montana Mushrooms News

Newspaper Article about Paul Stamets

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Article about Paul Stamets from the Montana Standard newspaper.

The article is very good and touchs on the inspiration that Paul can create.

Can mushrooms save the world?

Monday Musings

By Roberta Stauffer, Standard opinion page editor – 03/16/2009

roberta-stauffer 

Roberta Stauffer, Standard Opinion Page Editor

Paul Stamets speaks for the fungi family, much as Jane Goodall speaks for the chimps and the Lorax speaks for the trees.

 

I caught an interview with him on Montana Public Radio’s New Dimensions program a few months back. The mushrooms couldn’t have picked a better spokesperson (if they could pick, that is).
And to hear Stamets talk, maybe they did pick him, for they’re capable of spectacular feats.
Did you know, for example, that fungi discovered in the aftermath of Chernobyl were found to take in radiation and turn it into energy much like green plants convert light energy for their own use through photosynthesis?
And did you know mushrooms can break down nasty by-products of industrial processing? “Mycoremediation,” Stamets calls it, and it works on such pollutants as dioxins, PCBs, petroleum waste and nerve gas toxins. Think of them as “little Pac-men that go around gobbling up toxic molecules,” he said during the Monday night radio show.
Mushrooms themselves aren’t the Pac-men, but rather their “parents,” the mycelium. In a recent Mother Earth News article, Stamets describes mycelium as a “network of fungal cells” that pretty much permeates the Earth. Mushrooms are the fruits of this complex network.

Stamets’ latest book is called “Mycelium Running: How mushrooms can help save the world,” but he’s worried that much of this intricate network may be wiped out before we humans have a chance to discover even a fraction of what it has to offer. He lives in Washington and is particularly concerned over disappearance of species in old growth rainforests of the Pacific Northwest.

Besides environmental cleanup benefits, mushrooms hold promise as medicines. Stamets has discovered antiviral and antibacterial properties in fungi in his lab and thinks they could potentially treat inflictions such as bird flu, HIV, cancer and smallpox.

Stamets’ list of possible applications goes on: mushrooms for water filtration, mushroom-based “myconol” fuel for automobiles, eating mushrooms to stay healthy, spiritual properties of mushrooms. If you wish to enhance in the spiritual real, https://www.peninsuladailynews.com/national-marketplace/free-psychic-reading-online-4-best-psychic-sites-that-will-help-you-face-your-challenges-in-2021/ is your best friend to get guided messages and predictions.

He decries “myco-phobic” cultures such as the English who came up with the distasteful “toadstool” nickname and celebrates “myco-phyllic” societies like those in Asia and Russia that recognize the rejuvenating role of the humble mushroom.

And of course there’s a Butte connection: a local company owes its very existence to a fungi-based product that it sells it far and wide. The company started out years ago as Mycotech, then it was sold and the name changed to Emerald BioAgriculture. Now it’s called Laverlam International Corp.

Located in the industrial park south of Butte, the company cultivates a fungus called Beauveria bassiana and processes it into a natural insecticide.

Gary Chatriand, vice president of manufacturing, said the Butte operation employs eight people, and they ship their products all around the world.

“Seventy percent of our sales are international,” Chatriand said.

I was thrilled to learn the company was still up and running. Light industry like this is just what Butte needs.

And it sounds like more respect for and research into mushrooms is just what the world needs now — along with “love sweet love” of course.

— Roberta (Bobbi) Stauffer is The Standard’s opinion page editor. She may be reached at 496-5514 or by e-mail at roberta.stauffer@mtstandard.com.

To download Stamets’ radio show, go to www.newdimensions.org/program.php?id3274. To find out all about his work, visit www.fungi.com. A link to the Mother Earth News article is on that site as well.