Our most recent project has been to expand our mycelium onto a large amount of substrate. We have been acquiring large quantities of wood-chip from the City of Littleton, as well as wheat straw that we have been inoculating with various mushroom varieties for use over the summer. This spawn will be used for many purposes including starting a brand new mushroom farm called Jackie’s Farm in Brighton, Colorado as well as for many types of mycorestoration and mycoremediation. Since Oyster mushrooms have been known to be great mycoremediators we have mainly been expanding an oyster mushroom that we have dubbed ‘the ground oyster’. It was found in Denver last year in a golf course growing in the middle of a green. At first James and I figured it was growing on a rotten root that must have extended into the green, however, much to our amazement it was growing from the dirt itself. Under closer inspection it was concreting the soil and rocks together with mycelium. Not only that, but it was one of the largest clusters of oyster mushrooms we had ever seen. This strain of oyster mushroom has shown particular vigor in culture and grows through it’s substrate with lightning speed and efficiency. The picture shown above is a handful of the ‘ground oyster’ mycelium holding the pieces of wood together with much tenacity. There is a little picture gallery to look at below showing some of the things we were doing yesterday. Check back soon for updates on this matter, as well as a tutorial on how to expand mycelium many different ways.

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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!