Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast The Mushroom Hour Podcast
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| Ep. 183: Cheerful Apocalypse, Biological Abstraction & Creating Art from Within (feat. Stephanie Kilgast) | 18 Aug 2024 | 00:57:49 | |
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Show Music courtesy of the one and only Chris Peck: https://peckthetowncrier.bandcamp.com/
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| Ep. 182: The Mushroom Hunter's Kitchen & Inspiration from Catalonia (feat. Chad Hyatt) | 26 Jul 2024 | 00:59:39 | |
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| Ep. 173: Forage. Gather. Feast. - Truffles, Seasonal Harvests & Uncertain Futures (feat. Maria Finn) | 26 Mar 2024 | 00:59:47 | |
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| Ep. 83: Eat Weeds - Wild Plant Contemplations, Healing with Foraging & Perspectives in Ethnobotany (feat. Robin Harford) | 03 Jun 2021 | 01:20:44 | |
Today on Mushroom Hour we are graced by the presence of wild food expert and author Robin Harford. Robin is a plant-based forager, ethnobotanical researcher and wild food educator. He has published numerous foraging guidebooks and established his own wild food foraging school in 2008. His foraging courses were recently voted #1 in the UK by BBC Countryfile. Robin is the creator of Eatweeds which is listed in The Times Top 50 websites for food and drink. He has travelled extensively documenting and recording the traditional and local uses of wild food plants in indigenous cultures. His work has taken him to Africa, India, Southeast Asia, Europe and the USA. Robin regularly appears on radio and occasionally on television. His work has been recommended in BBC Good Food magazine, Sainsbury’s magazine as well as in The Guardian, The Times, The Independent, The Daily Telegraph among others.
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| Ep. 82: Zombie Cicadas, Fungivore Millipedes & Forest Pathology (feat. Dr. Matt Kasson) | 20 May 2021 | 01:39:18 | |
Today on the Mushroom Hour Podcast we have the privilege of speaking with Dr. Matt Kasson, Associate Professor of Forest Pathology and Mycology at West Virginia University. Dr. Kasson received his Ph.D. in Plant Pathology from the Pennsylvania State University where his research focused on using a native fungus, Verticillium nonalfalfae, as a biological control of the invasive tree, Ailanthus altissima (tree-of-heaven). He also holds an A.A.S. from Paul Smiths College and a B.S. and M.S. from the University of Maine. His current research areas include fungal-arthropod interactions, biological control of invasive plants and pathogens, and the biology and ecology of historic and emerging diseases of forest trees. Dr. Kasson is currently the Director of the International Culture Collection of (Vesicular) Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi (INVAM) and currently has research focused on the metabolites associated with interactions between arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and their plant partners. Dr. Kasson teaches undergraduate courses on general plant pathology and forest pest management and offers special topics courses for graduate students including advanced plant disease diagnostics.
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| Ep. 81: Fungi Magazine, Telluride Mushroom Festival & Our Future with Fungi (feat. Britt Bunyard) | 13 May 2021 | 01:30:54 | |
Today on Mushroom Hour we are joined by magnanimous mushroom mogul Britt Bunyard. Britt is the founder, Publisher, and Editor-in-Chief of the mycology journal Fungi. Britt received a Masters in Botany from Clemson University and a PhD in Plant Pathology from Penn State University. He has worked academically (and played very amateurishly) as a mycologist his entire career, writing scientifically for many research journals, popular science magazines, and books. He has served as an editor for mycological and entomological research journals, and mushroom guidebooks. A popular evangelizer on all things fungal, Britt has been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered, National Geographic Magazine, PBS’s NOVA television program, and in 2016 was made Executive Director of the Telluride Mushroom Festival. He’s given talks on mushrooms ranging across so many different subjects, I’m excited to learn what he’s focused on now and what he sees as the future of mycophile culture.
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| Ep. 80: Finding the Mother Tree - Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest (feat. Prof. Suzanne Simard) | 04 May 2021 | 01:35:26 | |
Professor Simard's must-read first book "Finding the Mother Tree" is OUT NOW:
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| Ep. 79: Solutions in Soil Carbon, Fungal Inspiration & Creating New Value Systems (feat. Larry Evans) | 29 Apr 2021 | 01:31:00 | |
Today on Mushroom Hour we are joined by mycophagy legend Larry Evans. Larry Evans is a mushroom hunter, teacher, cultivator, song writer, and cook. He has been instrumental in organizing forays, festivals, and workshops in Colorado, Montana, Washington, Oregon, British Columbia, Bolivia, and now Jamaica. He is a founder of the Western Montana Mycological Association, wrote a field guide to mushrooms of the Amazon, and appeared in Ron Mann’s come-documentary Know Your Mushrooms. His vast body of work includes detailed accounts of burn morel tracking throughout the Western US, explorations of jam-packed fungal jungles in Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador and evangelizing audiences about means of fungal digestion, how fungi remediate contaminated soils, and what the process of mushroom making is all about. Time to laugh and learn with a real-life fungal pioneer.
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| Ep. 78: Oakland Hyphae - First Annual Psilocybin Cup & BIPOC Entheogen Empowerment (feat. Reggie of Oakland Hyphae) | 20 Apr 2021 | 00:59:40 | |
Today on Mushroom Hour we are blessed by the presence of Reggie, activist, mycologist and founder of Oakland Hyphae. Reggie studied political science at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University and now has over a decade of political campaign experience ranging from local and state-level races to 3 Presidential races to working with the New York State Democrats, the DCCC, and the DNC. On the West Coast Reggie worked on a local level to replace police in schools with guidance counselors for the Black Organizing Project in Oakland. Inspired by early-life transformative experiences with psilocybin-containing mushrooms, Reggie has had a lifelong passion for mycology and now consults with the largest mushroom cultivators in the world. He has worked with the largest cultivators in The Netherlands and is currently advising in the establishment of the largest commercial mushroom farm and state of the art testing lab in Jamaica. He also has over 10 years of domestic experience in the US cannabis industry. Reggie is a member of the Advisory Board for Decriminalize Nature and an avid activist for police reform and an ally of The Movement for Black Lives.
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| Ep. 77: Teaming with Microbes - The Organic Gardener’s Guide To The Soil Food Web (feat. Jeff Lowenfels) | 14 Apr 2021 | 01:22:16 | |
Today on Mushroom Hour we have the privilege of speaking with Jeff Lowenfels. Jeff is the author of the Award-winning books “Teaming With Microbes: The Organic Gardener’s Guide To The Soil Food Web”, “Teaming With Nutrients: The Organic Gardener’s Guide to Optimizing Plant Nutrition” and “Teaming With Fungi: The Organic Grower’s Guide to Mycorrhizae”. Jeff Lowenfels has become a leader in the organic gardening/sustainability movement because of these best-selling books. His “Guide to the soil food web” has been hailed as one of the most important gardening books in the last 25 years. His talks have converted tens of thousands of gardeners at venues throughout North and South America to follow the path of organic gardening. Jeff hosted Alaska public television’s most popular show, “Alaska Gardens with Jeff Lowenfels.” Most importantly for him, Jeff is the founder of the national program “Plant A Row for The Hungry.” This program is active all 50 states and Canada and has resulted in millions pounds of garden produce being donated to feed the hungry every year.
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| Ep. 76: Mycorenewal - Ecological Restoration, Microbial Ecology & Bioremediation (feat. Mia Maltz PhD) | 08 Apr 2021 | 01:27:47 | |
Today on Mushroom Hour we are joined by the incredible myco-maven Mia Maltz PhD. As a UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the Division of Biomedical Sciences at UC Riverside, her research focuses on fungal communities and functional ecology in novel ecosystems, including pumice plains, drying lakebeds, and the lung mycobiome. Mia studied at the University of California, Irvine where she received my Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, with an emphasis on Ecological Restoration and Fungi. Her dissertation work in Kathleen Treseder’s Lab of Fungi, Ecosystems, and Global Change looked at the effects of habitat fragmentation and ecosystem degradation on fungal community composition and function. For her dissertation research, Mia investigated whether restoration techniques affect fungi and evaluated the efficacy of methods for restoring mycorrhizal fungal function within degraded landscapes. As an ecologist working at the interface of community ecology, biogeography, and mycology, her work broadly focuses on community responses to environmental perturbations, which feedback to influence plant and fungal community structure and ecosystem functioning.
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| Ep. 75: "Growing Back to Nature", Power of Storytelling & How Bananas Changed the World (feat. Anthony Basil Rodriguez) | 24 Mar 2021 | 00:46:28 | |
Anthony Basil Rodriguez is a New York-born independent photographer and filmmaker. Since childhood he has been oriented toward a range of visual worlds. As a teenager, Anthony began to carry around an old film camera that his younger brother had lying around from a school project. Eventually taking his hobby more seriously, Anthony obtained a job pushing carts in order to buy his first digital camera. One day after a thunderstorm he was discovered by a local news station knee-deep in floodwaters collecting photos of the aftermath. He spent the following three years submerged in live television, editing daily newscasts. During this time, he honed and developed a true eye and skill for editing, videography and ultimately storytelling. Since leaving the news industry Anthony has continued to push his craft, interlacing realms of photography, video and film. This work continues to bring Anthony around the world in pursuit of research and documentation of rare plants, disparate peoples and the flux of global society. One of his current projects, Growing Back to Nature, really caught my attention as it features foragers, citizen mycologists and seekers who are trying to carve out a future path based around a more holistic connection with our planet and what it is live more in tune with natural systems.
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| Ep. 74: Terrestrial Fungi - Cordyceps Genetics, Ganoderma Mysteries & Trusting Synchronicity (feat. Ryan Paul Gates) | 17 Mar 2021 | 01:24:27 | |
Today on Mushroom Hour we are blessed by the presence of Ryan Paul Gates, founder of Terrestrial Fungi. Ryan has spent the last ten+ years collecting and breeding fungal cultures from around the world. The strains he is probably most famous for propagating and breeding are cordyceps and ganoderma mushrooms. Ryan was really an early pioneer at popularizing cordyceps cultivation in the US, exposing us to techniques used from all over the globe. His team at Terrestrial Fungi are constantly hunting and breeding new and improved strains to add to their already staggering genetic library. They are constantly refining our selection process to bring Cordyceps farmers reliable and high yielding potent genetics. In the summer of 2019, they collected over 200 wild Cordyceps militaris ascospore isolates from over 30 carefully selected wild specimens: building their work of releasing the first single ascospore progeny strains of Cordyceps militaris in the USA. A master manifester and elevator of vibration, you can tell Ryan puts the highest intention and care into his work.
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| Ep. 172: The Very Merry Mushrooms - Mycology for All Ages, Learning through Play (feat. Tess Lassman) | 14 Mar 2024 | 00:51:35 | |
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Show Music courtesy of the one and only Chris Peck: https://peckthetowncrier.bandcamp.com/
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| Ep. 73: In Search of Mycotopia - Citizen Science, Fungi Fanatics & the Untapped Potential of Mushrooms (feat. Doug Bierend) | 10 Mar 2021 | 01:32:58 | |
Today we have the honor of speaking with journalist and author Doug Bierend. His new book “In Search of Mycotopia” dives into the neglected mega-science of mycology and introduces readers to the weird and wonderful communities of citizen scientists and microbe devotees who are leading the modern mycological movement. Doug uncovers a diverse cadre of growers, independent researchers, ecologists, entrepreneurs, and amateur enthusiasts, exploring and advocating for fungi’s capacity to improve and heal contaminated landscapes, provide food and medicine, and demonstrate how humans might live better with nature—and one another. The book is told through Doug’s first-hand encounters from the perspective of an embedded reporter drawn to this wonderfully enticing myco-culture This is an exploration of the wild new frontiers of all things mushroom and an inspiring look at the people who are paying attention to what fungi can teach us about the potential for our future. “Mycotopia is already all around us - All we have to do is embrace it.”
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| Ep. 72: Porcini, Systematics of Family Boletaceae & Fungus Farming Ants (feat. Bryn Dentinger PhD) | 01 Mar 2021 | 01:02:12 | |
Today on Mushroom Hour we are joined by the distinguished Bryn Dentinger, Curator of Mycology at the Natural History Museum of Utah and Associate Professor in the Biology Department at the University of Utah. Bryn hails from Minnesota and attended the University of Minnesota for his PhD, where he studied the molecular systematics of clavarioid and porcini mushrooms. He has carried out fieldwork all over the world, including exciting collecting trips to Vietnam, Brazil, and Cameroon. He spent years in the UK as the Head of Mycology at the world-renowned Kew Gardens and since 2003 has published dozens of research papers in respected scientific journals around the world. Now running the Dentinger lab in Utah, he continues to pursue molecular systematics research on mushrooms and other fungi around the world, combining fieldwork, collections, and modern genomic tools, while maintaining a keen interest in home-brewing and whisky. Bryn’s work has overlapped with many other guests on the Mushroom Hour and has been one of the most recommended guests.
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| Ep. 71: Wild Food Girl - Wild Food Cultures, Indigenous Agro-ecology & Foraging in Colorado (feat. Erica Davis) | 22 Feb 2021 | 01:06:04 | |
Today on Mushroom Hour we’re excited to speak with Erica Davis, founder of Wild Food Girl. Erica started writing her adventures with wild food back in 2009 at her blog, and later in a monthly magazine called “Wild Edible Notebook.” She teaches a course on useful plants at Colorado Mountain College and conducts plant walks around the state. She is also a regular presenter at the Midwest Wild Harvest Festival in Wisconsin. Erica’s educational background includes a BA in archaeology, an elementary school teaching credential, and an MA in technology-based education. Today she maintains an active Facebook community and is hard at work on her first book about edible wild plants in the West. Her incredible body of work is carefully compiled and she has worked diligently to provide accurate, useful, safe—and whenever possible, lesser known—information.
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| Ep. 70: Mycelium Coffins, Living Homes & Building with Bio-Materials (feat. Bob Hendrikx) | 15 Feb 2021 | 00:48:41 | |
Today on Mushroom Hour we are blessed by the presence of inventor & bio-designer Bob Hendrikx, coming to us all the way from the Netherlands. Through his work at Studio Hendrikx, Bob strives to restore the parasitic relationship between humanity and its environment by expanding the horizon of human imagination and exploring living materials. His Living Cocoon project has captured headlines around the world with a coffin made from mycelium that helps bodies decompose faster while improving the surrounding soil. Through all of his design endeavors Bob embraces the notion that current way we build and produce materials must change fundamentally. I’m excited to hear from this visionary designer how we may be able to shift humankind's 200,000-year model of parasitism and extraction by taking a cue from Mother Nature who has been leading the way for 3.8 billion years by growing materials in ecological harmony.
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| Ep. 69: Mushroom Mountain - Change the World with Fungi, Think Like a Mushroom (feat. Tradd Cotter) | 10 Feb 2021 | 01:18:23 | |
Today on Mushroom Hour we are graced by the presence of Tradd Cotter, coming to us from Mushroom Mountain. Tradd Cotter is a microbiologist, professional mycologist, and organic gardener, who has been tissue culturing, collecting native fungi in the Southeast, and cultivating both commercially and experimentally for more than twenty-five years. In 1996 he founded Mushroom Mountain, which he owns and operates with his wife, Olga, to explore applications for mushrooms in various industries and currently maintains over 200 species of fungi for food production, mycoremediation of environmental pollutants, and natural alternatives to chemical pesticides. His primary interest is in low-tech and no- tech cultivation strategies so that anyone can grow mushrooms on just about anything, anywhere in the world. Mushroom Mountain is currently expanding to 42,000 square feet of laboratory and research space near Greenville, South Carolina, to accommodate commercial production, as well as mycoremediation projects. His masterwork and must-own mycology reference - "Organic Mushroom Farming and Mycoremediation" had a huge impact on my own relationship with mycology.
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| Ep. 68: Learn Your Land - Connecting to Natural Spaces, Finding a Sense of Belonging (feat. Adam Haritan) | 01 Feb 2021 | 01:15:57 | |
Today we are blessed by the presence of Adam Haritan, founder of Learn Your Land. Adam started the famous Learn Your Land platform in 2014 out of a desire to connect naturalists with people who wanted to learn from naturalists. Learn Your Land is an advertisement-free media channel, helping people to improve their nature skills one species at a time. He spends most of my days either looking for mushrooms/plants/trees, researching mushrooms/plants/trees, filming mushrooms/plants/trees, or editing videos and content around mushrooms/plants/trees. Before his life became dedicated to this project, Adam studied classical piano and euphonium, toured as a drummer with a heavy metal band until his academic pursuits led him to study nutrition and dietetics at the University of Pittsburgh. I’m excited to probe the depths of a naturalist who has dedicated so much time and effort to help us all learn more about the land under our feet.
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| Ep. 67: Tiger Mushroom Farms - Working to End Hunger, Growing A New Future (feat. Te'Lario Watkins II) | 27 Jan 2021 | 00:26:19 | |
Today on Mushroom Hour we are excited to have a conversation with Te’Lario Watkins II, founder of Tiger Mushroom Farms. Te’Lario started his mushroom farm at the age of 7 on the heels of a Cub Scout Project. Now at age 12, Te’Lario is a speaker, author, Hunger Hero and nonprofit Founder. He grows shiitake mushrooms in his basement and oyster mushrooms in a spare bedroom. Te’Lario sells them at a farmers market and local restaurants. Te’Lario’s mission is to help end hunger and encourage kids to eat healthier. He has worked with No Kid Hungry to raise awareness and funds to end hunger. He volunteers with Food Rescue US and delivers unsold food from restaurants to food pantries. Te’Lario recently started his own nonprofit “The Garden Club Project” to help his mission to end hunger. This summer, Te’Lario’s nonprofit delivered over 2,000 pounds to a local food pantry in his community. Te’Lario was recently “gifted” a microgreen business and plans to donate some of the proceeds to his nonprofit to help his community even more.
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| Ep. 66: Madagascar's Marasmius & the Ecology of Monkeyflower Endophytes (feat. Jackie Shay) | 20 Jan 2021 | 01:03:53 | |
Today on Mushroom Hour we have the pleasure of learning from Jackie Shay. Jackie is a fungal evolutionary biologist and microbial ecologist fascinated with the intimate history and future significance of symbiotic relationships between plant hosts and their microbial communities. Her goal is to use integrative techniques to explore these interactions in the natural world and learn how we can apply these partnerships to promote conservation and resilience through climate change. Jackie received a master's in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology from the Desjardin lab at San Francisco State University studying the evolution of wood decaying mushrooms (Marasmius) from Madagascar. She is currently a Ph.D. student in the Sexton and Frank labs in the Quantitative and Systems Biology Program at the University of California, Merced. This interdisciplinary team has set out to uncover the mystery behind the Monkeyflower microbiome and discover whether these microbes influence their plant hosts across its range.
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| Ep. 65: Forage Colorado - Finding Wild Food & Connection in the Rocky Mountains (feat. Orion Aon) | 14 Jan 2021 | 01:07:44 | |
Today on Mushroom Hour we are privileged to get to speak with Orion Aon, founder of Forage Colorado. Orion is a Colorado transplant with a lifelong passion for the outdoors and anything there is to do in them. He loves to hunt, fish, forage, camp, wander and wonder, look at trees, you name it! Orion grew up in Santa Fe, NM where he first started mushroom hunting with his family looking for king boletes, chanterelles, and hawk's wings - like a treasure hunt in the woods that got him hooked. In 2008, he moved to Colorado to attend CSU where he would study Natural Resource Management and Fisheries Biology. In 2015 Orion started Forage Colorado as a place where he could share his passion for Colorado foraging with others. His first big project was writing a series about Colorado morels, which has helped a lot of people who didn’t even know there were morels in Colorado to find their first ones. He now offers private foraging classes and does talks, events, and leads forays for his local mycological society.
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| Ep. 64: Magdalena - Anthropology, Ethnobotany & Colombia's River of Dreams (feat. Wade Davis) | 06 Jan 2021 | 01:51:15 | |
Wade Davis is Professor of Anthropology and the BC Leadership Chair in Cultures and Ecosystems at Risk at the University of British Columbia. Between 2000 and 2013 he served as Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society and was named by NGS as one of the Explorers for the Millennium. He has been described as “a rare combination of scientist, scholar, poet and passionate defender of all of life’s diversity.” His work has taken him to unique biomes across the world including East Africa, Borneo, Nepal, Peru, Polynesia, Tibet, Mali, Benin, Togo, New Guinea, Australia, Colombia, Vanuatu, Mongolia and the high Arctic of Nunuvut and Greenland. An ethnographer, writer, photographer and filmmaker, Davis holds degrees in anthropology and biology and received his Ph.D. in ethnobotany, all from Harvard University. Through the Harvard Botanical Museum, he spent three years in the Amazon and Andes as a plant explorer, living among 15 indigenous groups in eight Latin American nations while making some 6000 botanical collections. Davis is the author of 320 scientific and popular articles and 23 books and as a professional speaker for 30 years, has lectured at over 200 universities and 250 corporations and professional associations. One of only 20 Honorary Members of the Explorers Club, his incredible list of awards, medals and accolades would warrant its own podcast. We’ve connected here today to introduce our audience to this incredible explorer, give some of his background and dive into his newest work about one of the most biodiverse and culturally relevant countries in the world – Colombia and it’s great river the Magdalena.
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| Ep. 171: A Magical Dutchman's Journey - Building Community at Fungi Academy (feat. Jasper Degenaars) | 23 Feb 2024 | 00:58:16 | |
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Show Music courtesy of the one and only Chris Peck: https://peckthetowncrier.bandcamp.com/
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| Ep. 63: Marin Mushrooms - Macro Photography, Myxomycetes (Slime Molds) & Tiny Fungi (feat. Alison Pollack) | 02 Jan 2021 | 00:53:52 | |
Today on Mushroom Hour we are fortunate to be joined be Alison Pollack. Alison is a photographer specializing in making large the diminutive dwellers of the forest - Myxomycetes (commonly referred to as slime molds) and tiny fungi. Her passion is finding, photographing, identifying and sharing these miniature worlds to bring awareness to the fascinating organisms that exist right at our feet in the forest but are largely hidden to the naked eye. Alison has always had a casual interest in photography, but when she retired from the field of air quality consulting she upgraded to a DSLR and began shooting landscapes at home and while traveling - hiking with her husband throughout the world. It wasn’t until she found and photographed her first slime mold, however, that she got serious about mushroom and myxo photography. Alison’s photographs have been featured in numerous publications, including Colossal, Bored Panda, MyModernMet, the German National Geographic magazine GEO, Der Spiegel, and the Sunday New York Times Magazine. Known as “Marin Mushrooms” on Instagram, her widely shared posts have inspired people to slow down on their hikes to search for these tiny life forms that she loves.
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| Ep. 62: Myco Lyco - Fungal Frequencies, Biodata Sonification & the Music of Mushrooms (feat. Noah Kalos) | 28 Dec 2020 | 01:07:17 | |
Today on Mushroom Hour we are blessed by the presence of Noah Kalos, founder of the groundbreaking Youtube and social media channels “MycoLyco”. This work is a blend of his passions for nature, mycology and electronic music. He originally got hooked on electronic music production at the age of 17, but in the past 6 years Noah took that passion to the next level, getting deep into digital music hardware and electrical engineering. Noah majored in studio art at Oberlin College and then spent 5+ years living in the woods transitioning between outdoor roles as a camp counselor and nature therapist. During his time in the wild, he became familiar with all kinds of wild foods and has been a longtime mycology enthusiast. In the wake of the pandemic, Noah decided to focus on growing mushrooms. His plan was to convert his music studio into a mycology lab, but after a fateful connection between mycelium and synth electrodes, the studio and lab became one in the same. Now with his MycoLyco project, Noah has been giving us all a window into the incredible musical frequencies of fungi.
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| Ep. 61: Fly Agaric - A Compendium of History, Pharmacology, Mythology, & Exploration (feat. Kevin Feeney PhD) | 23 Dec 2020 | 01:40:13 | |
Today we have the privilege of speaking with Kevin Feeney, PhD, JD. Kevin is a cultural anthropologist and lawyer currently working as a Program Director and Instructor in Interdisciplinary Studies – Social Sciences at Central Washington University. His primary research interests include examining legal and regulatory issues surrounding the religious and cultural use of psychoactive substances, with an emphasis on peyote and ayahuasca, and exploring modern and traditional uses of Amanita muscaria, with a specific focus on medicinal use and preparation practices. His research has been published in the International Journal of Drug Policy, Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, Human Organization, and Curare, among other books and journals. He is a current board member of Cactus Conservation Institute, which is dedicated to the study and preservation of vulnerable cacti and is also a member of Chacruna’s Council for the Protection of Sacred Plants.
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| Ep. 60: Exploring the Endless Wonders of Truffle Fungi (feat. Dr. Matthew Smith) | 16 Dec 2020 | 01:17:50 | |
Today on Mushroom Hour we are joined by the distinguished Dr. Matthew Smith. Dr. Smith is an Associate Professor in the Department of Plant Pathology at the University of Florida and the curator of the UF Fungal Herbarium (FLAS). He teaches the UF mycology course and takes on the responsibility of identifying unknown fungi for a variety of Florida stakeholders, including the UF Plant Disease Clinic, UF-IFAS Extension Service, and the UF Veterinary School. His broad range of interests spans fungal ecology, evolution, and systematics. Dr. Smith has worked extensively on the biology and systematics of hypogeous fungi (“truffles”) and the ecology of plant-symbiotic ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungi. However, he has also studied a variety of other fungal groups, including plant pathogens Armillaria mellea ("oak root fungus") and Claviceps purpurea (Ergot disease of grasses) as well as the nematode-destroying fungi (Orbiliales and other Ascomycota). Dr. Smith’s work combines the synergistic use of molecular, morphological, and culture-based methods in both laboratory and field settings.
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| Ep. 59: Mushroom Revelations & the Unseen World of Microbia (feat. Eugenia Bone) | 09 Dec 2020 | 01:22:49 | |
Today on Mushroom Hour we are blessed to have the company of Eugenia Bone. Eugenia is a nature and food journalist, as well as an author and speaker, whose writing is primarily about the connections between food, sustainability and the natural sciences. Her work has appeared in many books, magazines, and newspapers, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Saveur, Food & Wine, Gourmet, and The National Lampoon. A member of the American Society of Science Writers, founder of Slow Food Western Slope in Western Colorado, and former president of the New York Mycological Society, she has lectured widely in venues like the Denver Botanical Garden and the New York Public Library. Eugenia is the author of six books, including the mushroom lover must-have “Mycophilia” and her most recent work Microbia: A Journey into the Unseen World Around You. Eugenia has lectured widely in venues like the Denver Botanical Gardens, the New York Public Library, and the Stone Barns Center. She’s currently featured in “Fantastic Fungi”, a movie about the magical world of fungi and their power to heal, sustain and contribute to the regeneration of life on Earth.
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| Ep. 58: Unwinding Mushroom Mysteries, Decoding Fungal Genetics (feat. Todd Osmundson PhD) | 04 Dec 2020 | 01:10:41 | |
Today on Mushroom Hour we have the pleasure of speaking with the distinguished Todd Osmundson PhD, Associate Professor of Biology at The University of Wisconsin Lacrosse. Todd is a faculty member in the Department of Biology and his research specialties include studying the ecology, genetic relationships, geographic distributions, and conservation biology of bacteria and especially fungi, using fieldwork, microscopy, and molecular genetic (DNA-based) tools. His professional mycology career really began during a fateful encounter with a local mushroom club in Montana. Todd has conducted mycological fieldwork in the U.S., French Polynesia, China, Mexico, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Svalbard, Thailand, and Australia. His varied research projects have seen him span alpine, arctic, tropical, and temperate habitats in search of fungi. There are few people more familiar with the process of finding, observing, extracting DNA, and genetically sequencing fungi. Let's learn more about where “we” are in cataloging fungal populations, what that means for mycology and how citizen scientists can be a part of this process.
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| Ep. 57: Secondary Metabolites, Mycotoxins & Fungi in Food Systems (feat. Professor Tom Volk) | 04 Dec 2020 | 01:02:06 | |
Today on Mushroom Hour we have the humbling privilege to speak with Tom Volk, Professor of Biology at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. Specializing in Mycology and Forest Pathology, Tom teaches courses on Mycology, Medical Mycology, Plant-Microbe Interactions, Food & Industrial Mycology, Advanced Mycology, Organismal Biology and Latin & Greek for Scientists. His website, Tom Volk's Fungi has a popular "Fungus of the Month" feature, and an extensive introduction to Queendom Fungi. Besides dabbling in mushroom cultivation, Tom has worked intimately with the genera Morchella, Cantharellus, Hydnellum, Armillaria and Laetiporus, a lineup of edible varieties that will make every forager’s mouth water. He has also embarked on several medical mycology projects, investigations into prairie mycorrhizae, mycoprospecting, and fungi that are involved in coal formation. He also has conducted fungal biodiversity studies in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Alaska, and Israel. Having lectured in 35 states so far, Tom is a popular speaker at many amateur and professional mycological events throughout North America, including NAMA and NEMF forays. Not the least of his accolades, Tom was named President of the Mycology Society of America in 2017.
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| Ep. 56: Wood-Decomposer Fungi & Mycelium Network Architecture (feat. Professor Lynne Boddy) | 30 Nov 2020 | 01:19:23 | |
Today on Mushroom Hour we are joined by the distinguished Lynne Boddy, Professor of Microbial Ecology at Cardiff University. After undergraduate studies in Biology and Mathematical Statistics at the University of Exeter, she was interested in any and every type of ecology. A fortuitous position at the University of London led her to studying wood decay processes, which would turn out to be the subject of her PhD. That work snowballed into a 40-year exploration of wood decay processes with fungi at its core. As well as scientifically challenging and environmentally of massive consequences, mycelia and their interactions have a huge aesthetic appeal for Professor Boddy. There are so many burning questions when it comes to fungal biology, fungi’s relationships to food sources, fungi’s relationship to other fungi and other microorganisms that she, along with around 40 PhD students, post-docs and other co-workers, have striven and are striving to answer. Lynne’s passion for fungi laces out into studies of mycorrhizal fungi, the rising amateur mycologist community, and nearly every other aspect of how fungi will change human lives. There is an obvious joy in her communication of this information to both student audiences and to the public at large. We’re about to enter an exciting world of fungal battles, life and death struggles, epic hunts for food and the complexities of non-human intelligence.
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Directed, Recorded, Produced by: Mushroom Hour (@welcome_to_mushroom_hour) | |||
| Ep. 55: EcoAgric Uganda - Mushroom Farming, Empowering Women, Protecting the Vulnerable (feat. Josephine Nakakande) | 23 Nov 2020 | 01:29:37 | |
Today on Mushroom Hour we are excited to travel to Uganda to speak with Josephine Nakakande. Josephine was a founding member of The Environmental Conservation & Agricultural Enhancement Uganda or “Eco-Agric Uganda” and has been the Executive Director of the organization since 2018. Eco-Agric Uganda is a Ugandan Community-based NGO. major focus was improving food security, nutrition, and income among critically vulnerable women through sustainable farming practices. However, over time, they have included interventions like HIV prevention and control, sanitation and environmental strategies that affect agriculture. They have explored a unique, holistic approach to supporting households with interventions like; training adolescent girls with vocational skills so they can support their children. The organization now has over 65,000 beneficiaries with well-established offices in Hoima Kibaale and Wakiso districts. It also started an international volunteers program and since 2017, Eco-Agric Uganda has hosted over 162 volunteers from all over the world. One of Eco-Agric’s biggest projects is their mushroom farming project in partnership with the Marr-Munning Trust. Farmers are trained on how to grow and manage mushrooms in their gardens and the materials needed in mushroom production.
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| Ep. 54: Woodland Cravings - Permaculture, Agroforestry & the Sacred Act of Foraging (feat. Scott Stimpson) | 19 Nov 2020 | 01:35:15 | |
Today on Mushroom Hour we are excited to chat with Scott Stimpson. Better known for his incredibly popular social media accounts “woodlandcravings”, Scott has been foraging for over 8 years across 18 different states in the US. Growing up in Broward County Florida, Scott was immersed in a diverse culture and developed a love of foods from all over. His love of food naturally led to a love of cultivation and appreciating the culinary abundance that is all around us in nature. Not until Scott learned the word “permaculture” did he know the path he had to take. His passion for agroforestry, foraging and mushrooms eventually led him to the mushroom mecca, the Pacific Northwest. As a student of working with the land in all these varied disciplines, Scott has developed an intimate relationship with natural systems. His lifestyle revolves around a symbiosis with the land and he is keenly aware of a responsibility to act as a shepherd of our Earth. As part of his great work, Scott shares his knowledge about permaculture techniques and ethical foraging with others, both online and in-person. For anyone who has followed Scott’s work, it is clear his passion and gratitude for nature’s culinary bounty are present in equal measure. I’m excited to learn more about this sacred relationship we have with the land that provides for us and how to give back as much as we receive.
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| Ep. 170: Oklahoma Fungi - Building Future Generations of Mycologists (feat. Jacob Devecchio) | 13 Feb 2024 | 00:59:11 | |
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| Ep. 53: Mycorrhizal Planet - How Symbiotic Fungi Support Plant Health and Build Soil Fertility (feat. Michael Phillips) | 15 Nov 2020 | 01:23:29 | |
Today on Mushroom Hour we have the good fortune to be joined by Michael Phillips. Michael is a farmer, writer, carpenter, orchard consultant, and speaker who lives with his wife, Nancy, and daughter, Grace, on Heartsong Farm in northern New Hampshire. On the farm, they grow apples and a variety of medicinal herbs. Michael’s orchard, poetically dubbed Lost Nation Orchard, is part of the Holistic Orchard Network, and he also leads the community orchard movement at groworganicapples.com. He is the author of The Apple Grower, The Holistic Orchard, and teamed up with his wife to write The Herbalist’s Way. While all these works are milestones in regenerative orcharding and permaculture farming practices, we’re going to focus on his most recent work, the paradigm-shifting and mind-blowing Mycorrhizal Planet. More than just a celebration of the incredible mycorrhizosphere, this book makes you appreciate the complex ecosystem that is soil and how interactions at the microbial level on up effect everything that is birthed from a patch of Earth. This book will make you see your own lawn or garden as a complex ecosystem, awash in organic processes that, with the proper understanding and techniques, you can facilitate to build healthier soil, teeming with mycorrhizal fungi.
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| Ep. 52: Shared Cultures - Foraging, Fermenting & the Magic of Koji (feat. Eleana Hsu) | 09 Nov 2020 | 01:12:58 | |
Today on Mushroom Hour we have the honor of chatting with and learning from Eleana Hsu. Eleana is a fermentress focused on transforming foods with the magic of microbes and koji. What makes her most excited is creating new food products and flavors using local produce, different types of beans, and whole utilization techniques. Eleana has experience teaching koji workshops in the Bay Area and crafting ferments for local popup dinners and events. Koji is a filamentous fungi that has been used to ferment food since 300 BC. By employing this wondrous organism in a sort of alchemical, culinary transmutation may play a big role in the future of food as we know it. Currently, she is working on launching unique great tasting fermented food products in the Bay Area with her company Shared Cultures.
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| Ep. 51: Planet Fungi - Capturing Mushrooms with World-Famous Photographer Steve Axford | 04 Nov 2020 | 01:26:04 | |
Today on Mushroom Hour we are blessed to have the chance to chat with international fungi photographer Stephen Axford.
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| Ep. 50: Return to Nature - Herbalism, Rewilding & Overgrowing the System (feat. Dan De Lion) | 30 Oct 2020 | 01:26:41 | |
Today on Mushroom Hour we are joined by Dan de Lion of Return to Nature. The mission of Return to Nature is to provide a safe and healing teaching bridge for individuals and communities to recognize Nature as a continual and abundant provider of nourishment, medicine, food, and sacred connection, and to help reconnect the perception that Nature is the very source of our sustenance as humans. By teaching about the edible and medicinal aspects of wild plants, medicinal herbs, and mushrooms, Dan aims to help move humanity towards a Nature appreciation based paradigm which inspires people to forage, wildcraft, create tools for survival and primitive art, treat their own ailments with what nature provides, and get a little probiotic dirt under their fingernails. Engaging with Nature and tapping into ancient and sacred ways to directly carve our intuitive practice and reawaken a self-reliant depth within that seems so lost in today’s society. Once we recognize and reclaim our oneness with Nature and look around with new eyes we realize an ever present bounty Mother Nature provides and we just may see that we have never left Eden.
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| Ep. 49: Changing the Narrative - Reclaiming Ecological, Economic, Social and Political Power (feat. Antonio Cosme) | 26 Oct 2020 | 01:57:54 | |
Antonio Cosme is an indigenous (Coahuiltecan and Boricua) writer, public speaker, entrepreneur, radical economist, educator, artist, beekeeper and farmer from Southwest, Detroit. Much of his work has been dedicated to lecturing, writing, and acting in opposition to the neoliberal assault on Detroit and water. Antonio has a unique gift for connecting social movements with struggles for land reclamation and intersectional environmental justice. | |||
| Ep. 48 - Embracing the Land, Facing Colonialism and Honoring Indigenous Culture (feat. Amber of Moon Mountain) | 23 Oct 2020 | 01:50:44 | |
Today on Mushroom Hour we are grateful for the opportunity to speak with Amber, one of the founders of Moon Mountain. Moon Mountain is a 40-acre biodynamic farm, wild food refuge and all-around sacred space located in the beautiful Michigan wilderness among some of the oldest mountains in the world. This compound functions as a demonstration site for regenerative agricultural practices and serves as a “hands on” medicinal plant classroom for their rural community. | |||
| Ep. 47 - Bioluminescent Mushrooms, Psilocybe of Mexico and the Power of Citizen Mycology (feat. Alan Rockefeller) | 18 Oct 2020 | 01:30:02 | |
Today on Mushroom Hour we are blessed to speak with our very special guest Alan Rockefeller. Alan is a mycologist who has undertaken extensive field and lab research on the mushrooms of California and Mexico. He has been collecting mushrooms for 17+ years and has focused on the taxonomy and photography of Mexican mushrooms for the past 11+ years. Since he began these adventures, he has played a central role in mapping fungal diversity throughout different climate ranges in Mexico. This includes some of the most in-depth field observations in the world when it comes to those incredible bioluminescent and infamous psilocybin containing fungi. We'll cover it all - how bioluminescence occurs in biology, the evolutionary significance of bioluminescent enzymes and psilocybin compounds in fungi and how Alan goes about finding the rarest varieties of these fascinating organisms. The epitome of the self-taught naturalist and citizen scientist we'll learn the secrets of how Alan gained his vast taxonomic knowledge. Just "showing up" and pursuing his interests he has been able to collaborate with leading academics in the field of mycology. Alan then reveals how we can all contribute to the science of mycology by making good observations in the field and cataloging them effectively for posterity. We get a masterclass on cataloging field finds including how to take good photos in the field, record relevant observations, preserve dried specimens and even how we can sequence the genome of our fungal finds. This is an incredible opportunity to soak up wisdom and experience from a legend in the field of citizen mycology. Directed, Recorded, Produced by: Mushroom Hour (@welcome_to_mushroom_hour) | |||
| Ep. 46: Modern Foragers - Foraging, Cooking and Preserving Wild Mushrooms (feat. Kristen and Trent Blizzard) | 14 Oct 2020 | 01:08:16 | |
Today on Mushroom Hour we have the glorious opportunity to speak with Kristen and Trent Blizzard from Modern Forager. This fungal dynamic duo started out as online marketers who turned a love of mushroom adventures into a calling, a community and an obsession. | |||
| Ep. 45: Meati - The Fungal Future of Food (feat. Tyler Huggins & Justin Whiteley) | 09 Oct 2020 | 01:03:36 | |
Today we are excited to chat with Tyler Huggins and Justin Whiteley – cutting-edge food pioneers and founders of Meati, a fungi-based protein company. Meati's mission is to help provide the world with nutritious protein with minimally-processed, fungi-based meats with superfood-level nutrition that don’t compromise on taste or sustainability. Tyler and Justin believe that finding the right protein should be easy and consumers should never have to choose between health, taste, or the environment. | |||
| Ep. 44: Medicinal Mushrooms - The Human Clinical Trials (feat. Robert Rogers) | 05 Oct 2020 | 01:33:45 | |
Robert Dale Rogers has been an herbalist for over forty-five years, and is a professional member of the American Herbalist Guild. He earned a Bachelor of Science from the University of Alberta, where he is presently an assistant clinical professor in Family Medicine. He teaches plant medicine, including plant and mushroom medicine, aromatherapy and flower essences in the Earth Spirit Medicine faculty at the Northern Star College in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He is a Fellow of the International College of Nutrition, past chair of the medicinal mushroom committee of the North American Mycological Association, and previously served on the editorial board of the International Journal of Medicinal Mushrooms. | |||
| Ep. 169: Mycological Analytics, Community Science, Entheogenic Genomes (Ian Bollinger) | 29 Jan 2024 | 00:53:38 | |
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| Ep. 43: Lorelle Morel - Forest Biology, Fire Ecology and an Obsession with Wild Foods (feat. Lorelle Sherman) | 30 Sep 2020 | 01:10:36 | |
Today on Mushroom Hour we have the amazing opportunity to interview Lorelle Sherman. Lorelle is an accomplished field naturalist who has studied flora, fauna and funga of diverse ecosystems across the US. She received her BS in Forest and Wildlife Biology from the University of Vermont and received her Masters Degree in Forest Ecology at Oregon State University. | |||
| Ep. 42: Red Glasses - England's Godfather of Mushrooms and Worldwide Forager (feat. Roger Phillips) | 25 Sep 2020 | 00:57:03 | |
Today on Mushroom Hour we are honored to speak with our distinguished, bespectacled guest Roger Phillips. Roger is a natural nonconformist and a legendary godfather of foraging in the UK. Drawing upon decades of experience, his knowledge of wild food is unrivaled. Known as “Mr Mushrooms” he is an expert mycologist, renowned for his work tracking and recording more than 1,600 species of fungi in North America and Europe. Considered a pioneer in the use of photography for documenting and identifying mushrooms, he has written numerous guide books and resource materials. | |||
| Ep. 41: Edulis Wild Foods - Foraging Mushrooms and Restoring Vital Connection in the UK Isles (feat. Lisa Cutcliffe) | 23 Sep 2020 | 01:20:42 | |
Today on Mushroom Hour we are excited to sit down and chat with Lisa Cutcliffe from Leeds, Yorkshire in the UK. Lisa is the founder, foraging-guide-in-chief and all-round mushroom-nut at Edulis Wild Foods. With a degree in biology, being a keen gardener, veg grower, and having a lifelong fascination with nature and wildlife, she is interested in all aspects of wild food and medicinals. | |||