This quick update will cover our recent project with Dr. Rytas Vilgalys, Professor of Biology at Duke University. Dr. Rytas was kind enough to do some PCR DNA and get an ITS sequence of some of our various collections of Pleurotus that were found growing on pine wood.

Over the past 2 years, James and I have been on the hunt for an oyster mushroom that grows on pine. To explain, I should first give a little background about these particular fungi. They tend to favor deciduous wood, especially poplar trees in Colorado. To most fungi, pine wood isn’t something easy to eat. Coniferous trees contain natural resins that tend to contain chemicals that are quite anti-fungal. This does not mean that fungi cannot eat coniferous wood, it is just quite difficult for them to do. However, Pleurotus are special fungi. They have discovered a quite efficient method of decomposing their substrate, excreting powerful digestive enzymes able to breakdown many different types of freshly cut wood. There is even a type of Pleurotus that can grow on cactus skeletons! The Pleurotus that James and I had found were growing from the cut stumps of pine trees and a spruce log growing at 10,000′ in elevation. These were cultured in our lab in Denver and were eventually sent to Dr. Rytas. He was interested in them because of their unique habitats they were found growing in and was wondering, as we were, if they were a possible new species of Pleurotus. He also received a few control collections of Pleurotus pulmonarius from various locations in the state, growing from cottonwood trees. These were tested against the mushrooms that were found growing on conifers. This testing is basically done by taking known sets of genes from a specific species of fungi and testing samples of DNA against those genes to see if they are similar enough to be the same genetic group (hopefully that wasn’t too over simplified?). Much to our surprise, every specimen came back as P. pulmonarius! It is well documented that P. pulmonarius grows occasionally from conifer, but these specimens also had unique morphological features that were distinctly different, even with indoor grown mushrooms in a controlled environment! Just goes to show that morphology sometimes can tell you very little about what type of fungi you have. We now know that our cultures of oysters collected from these conifer habitats are P. pulmonarius, but have somehow developed a unique set of digestive enzymes to deal with the oils in the wood that tend to inhibit fungi.

The reason James and I are extremely interested in pine loving oysters is because the Rocky Mountains are plagued with a pine eating beetle that is destroying our forests by the entire mountainside. The general way to deal with this problem (due to the extreme fire danger it creates) is to cut down the infected trees and pile them in large piles. They are used mainly for fire wood, but the pine loving  mushrooms would decompose the wood much faster, creating larger soil depth. Paul Stamets has a discussion in his book, Mycelium Running, about the honey mushroom and its method of creating a deeper humus depth. Many of these plagues, whether they be a fungus or an insect, may look very disastrous to the environment to humans. This is only because of our perception of time. The trees that once stood as a forest are now decomposing, increasing the potential of the forest to create more life. As soil depth increases, the forest can house more and more plants. We would like to make these Pleurotus part of the solution to this large problem we are facing today.

As far as we know… which of course isn’t a whole heck of a lot (you are visiting Amateur Mycology after all) we are the first to find blonde morels in Colorado this year. We have video evidence for those of you who do not believe, which we will be posting soon along with pictures! They were found at about 5,000-5,500′ in elevation yesterday. The soil temperature was ranging from 49-53 degrees F in the areas they were found (we for some reason can’t remember exactly where). We are using fairly cheap digital candy thermometers to read the soil temperatures around the general area, as well as directly in the vicinity of the mushrooms. So for all of you in Colorado, hope for a little rain and get out there looking! I think we got a little rain this afternoon….

Now that we have received our spring rains, the Colorado mushroom season has begun. I have seen quite a few Coprinus comatus around the city, but if you look in your local riparian areas you may come across the infamous oyster mushroom, Pleurotus pulmonarius in most cases, growing on dead or dying deciduous trees and stumps. Pleutotus pulmonarius is the most common species in lower elevations, favoring cottonwood trees. Colorado also has a couple other species, Pleurotus populinus probably being the next most well known. It is found growing on aspen and has more delicate ‘shelves’. Another species, Pleurotus dryinus has also been found in Colorado. It is usually has less of a clustering habit, longer and larger stems, a mostly centrally attached stem and a very distinctive cap. All oyster mushrooms have a very distinctive shape, sometimes growing in fans that are shaped closely to an oyster shell. They also are known to have a slight shellfish odor, making the common name ‘oyster mushroom’ very fitting.
To make sure you have a Pleurotus species take a spore print. Put a mature mushroom cap on a piece of white paper and with your finger, moisten the cap with a little bit of water. Then put a glass over top of it to reduce air flow around the cap so the spores fall off of the gills and onto the paper. Leave it over night until the next morning. You should be left with a gray or gray/lilac spore print.
James and I have been finding quite a few oysters out already, as the weather is permitting them to fruit. They are just beginning as most of the logs we know have large amounts of mushrooms have yet to show major signs of fruiting. Nonetheless, there are still pounds of mushrooms already out and ready for picking!
Below is a gallery featuring some of the oyster mushrooms we have found in the past few days. Bert, the newest member of Amateur Mycology is shown above with a particularly large cluster of Pleurotus pulmonarius I found on a cottonwood stump yesterday in Boulder. He brought us to a couple other oyster mushroom spots as that were very interesting! Stay tuned for an Amateur Mycology Video Magazine episode featuring our early oyster hunts!
P.S. No morels seen yet, but we will keep you posted. Still to early.

This month, Dr Cathy Cripps will be visiting the Colorado Mycological Society to give a lecture on Montana’s fungi. Dr Cathy Cripps is an associate professor at Montana State University where she teaches Biology, Mycology and the Ecology of Fungi. She completed her PhD with Orson Miller at VPI on aspen fungi. Her current research is on Arctic-Alpine fungi and she is also examining how inoculation of seedlings with native mycorrhizal fungi can help restore whitebark and limber pine forests. She has numerous publications on Rocky Mountain fungi and edited “Fungi in Forest Ecosystems” and the newly published “Arctic-alpine Mycology 8” (online at North American Fungi). Cathy has collected in Colorado and Montana for most of her life and looks forward to sharing information on mushrooms in the Northern Rocky Mountains with her Southern Rocky Mountain friends! If you are interested in attending her lecture, visit the Colorado Mycological Society website for information on CMS meetings!

Welcome to the brand new home for the Amateur Mycologists. We are an organization that focuses on applications for mycellium beyond mycophagy (besides just eating mushrooms, what other ‘super powers’ do fungi have?). The environment around us is altered everyday through our negligent actions, and we need to lead the charge to save our planet. Our mission is to repair our environment through fungi… and have fun while doing it! This website is dedicated to all who share this passion or are just interested in learning about these new green technologies. As of now, just to give a quick update, we are culturing around 30 different species that are native to the Rocky Mountain region. These mushrooms will be used for all of our up and coming projects to remediate land in the state of Colorado. Check back soon for a list of species, as well as more info about what’s happening with ‘the troop’ this fall!