Back From Nebraska With Morels!

May 4, 2011
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The Great Nebraska Mushroom Hunt was a success again this year, with many people attending finding a good number of blonde morels. We would like to thank everyone who volunteered their time to make it such a wonderful event, especially Linda, for all her time and energy she dedicates each year to host the hunt. [...]

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Colorado Oyster Mushrooms!

April 21, 2011
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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 [...]

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The Great Nebraska Mushroom Hunt

April 18, 2011
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The last Saturday in April in the small Nebraska town of Peru, there is a gathering of people from across the country all hunting for one mushroom… the elusive culinary delight, the Blonde Morel! James and I have plans to visit this festival, film our trip there and back, and plan on hunting the Morel [...]

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First Finds of the 2011 Colorado Mushroom Season

April 12, 2011
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Yesterday, James went out and found a Polyporus squamosus, the dryad’s saddle, fresh and still in button stage. In February we found some Flammulina velutipes fruiting on our oyster and enoki stump in Littleton, however, also known as the winter mushroom, Flammulina velutipes can be found in almost every month of the year. This morning I went [...]

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Pink Oyster Arrives From Kauai Fungi!

April 12, 2011
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The guys over at Kauai Fungi were kind enough to donate 2 petri dishes of Pleurotus djamor, the Pink Oyster Mushroom, to us here at Amateur Mycology for the Amateur Mycology Culture Library. Saturday they arrived in the mail! We quickly made sure they were not sitting in the mail box too long, as it [...]

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We’re Back From Texas!

April 10, 2011
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Our trip was a blast. It was very nice to be looking for mushrooms so early in the year compared to what we are used to out here in Colorado. However, the drought conditions in Texas made searching for them a little more difficult than in years previous. We learned that last year’s Morel season [...]

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Mushrooms in Montana’s Wild Places—a walk through the seasons by Dr. Cathy Cripps

April 1, 2011
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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 [...]

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Fungi and Sustainability

March 21, 2011

The concept of “sustainability” is becoming ever more prominent in almost every area of human affairs, from individual households to the planet Earth itself. A brief history of the development of the concept of sustainability and its implementation is presented.

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A Visit to Jackie’s Farm

March 9, 2011
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This weekend marked the beginning of a very exciting project. James and I have been looking to start a sustainable agriculture project involving fungi for quite a while now, and lucky for us, Jackie’s Farm came along. The farm is located just east of Denver in the community of Brighton, Colorado. There is a lot [...]

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Mycelial Expansion

March 4, 2011
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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 [...]

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