(IJCH) My Newest Hobby: Mycology (Fungi and Mycelium)
(IJCH) My Newest Hobby: Mycology (Fungi and Mycelium)
IJCH - Inside JaiChai's Head (Meaning: My Warped, Personal Opinions and Musings)
From the Author:
Salutations.
I am JaiChai.
And if I haven't had the pleasure of meeting you before, I'm delighted to make your acquaintance now.
I invite you to interact with everyone, learn, and have as much fun as possible!
For my returning online friends, "It's always great to see you again!"
As if I needed another hobby (I have MANY), I just got hooked on Fungi; specifically, the whole mycelium world in general.
Those who know me, I took up gardening and botany around June this year. After many failed attempts at growing plants for the first time, I have had enough success (so far) that now I am happy letting it go on auto-pilot.
My tomato, kankong, snow peas and peppers are growing healthy and stronger everyday. My trick? I quit "over-loving" them with too much water, too much fertilizer and most importantly, I quit getting so depressed when a few out of a group of seedlings didn't germinate or whenever a young plant died.
But this post is about my new hobby: Fungi.
How did this happen?
Simple.
After listening to a lecture on Mycelium by Paul Stamets, I was absolutely hooked!
About Paul Stamets
Stamets is on the editorial board of the International Journal of Medicinal Mushrooms (Begell House).
He is an advisor to the Program for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine.
Although he is not a medical practitioner, he recommended contacting Dr. Andrew Weil during a Coast to Coast AM interview with George Noory which was broadcast on September 13, 2018.
He is involved in two National Institutes of Health-funded clinical studies on cancer and HIV treatments using mushrooms as adjunct therapies.
He earned nine patents on the antiviral, pesticidal, and remedial properties of mushroom mycelia. A strong advocate of preserving biodiversity, Stamets supports research into the role of mushrooms for ecological restoration.
Stamets is an advocate of the permaculture system of growing, and considers fungiculture a valuable but underutilized aspect of permaculture. He is interested in the use of mushrooms in bioremediation, a process he terms mycoremediation.
See this great video:
https://www.ted.com/talks/paul_stamets_on_6_ways_mushrooms_can_save_the_world?language=en
So Many Neat things I've Learned so far...
Luckily, my past medical skills made it easy to make agar medium, petri dish mycelium, and inoculate other substrate and even liquid cultures.
I've been successful with using coffee grounds, cardboard, dried grass with dried oatmeal, coconut palm fronds, and rice as viable mycelium substrates.
I did have two instances of trichoderma, but that is because I am winging it without a glove box and without a laminar flow hood.
Basically, I just use A LOT of hydrogen peroxide and alcohol.
Then I hold my breath and use the cleanest technique when inoculating occurs! By no means is it anywhere near aseptic technique!
If all goes well, my first four fully colonized "blocks" will be ready to fruit into Resihi, Wild, Oyster, and button mushrooms.
The only thing I haven't figured out yet is how to control the temperature, humidity, and lighting for each species.
My next target mushrooms are the more finicky and harder to cultivate Morel and Shitake.
In conclusion, I am having fun with this new hobby because of the significance of mycelium in our ecology and contributions to life on Earth since humans broke away from fungi long ago.
By JaiChai
Really Appreciate You Stopping By.
Truly hope to see you again!
And if you liked my post, kindly Upvote, Comment, Follow, and ReSteem.
About the Author
Believing that school was too boring, he dropped out of High School early; only to earn an AA, BS and MBA in less than 4 years much later in life – while working full-time as a Navy/Marine Corps Medic.
In spite of a fear of heights and deep water, he performed high altitude, free-fall parachute jumps and hazardous diving ops in deep, open ocean water.
After 24 years of active duty, he retired in Asia.
Since then, he's been a full-time, single papa and actively pursuing his varied passions (Writing, Disruptive Technology, Computer Science and Cryptocurrency - plus more hobbies too boring or bizarre for most folk).
He lives on an island paradise with his teenage daughter, longtime girlfriend and three dogs.
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This post was resteemed by @steemvote and received a 99.95% Upvote. Send 0.5 SBD or STEEM to @steemvote
Hi jaichai... Honestly this is a very beautiful post.. :-) impressed
Thank you very much for visiting and commenting.
Namaste, JaiChai
Oh God.. :-)
You know "Namaste" already .. ha ha ha ... so nice of you bro..
Loved your persistency toward your work. I lost interest in planting tree when see my plants not growing & eventually dead. But it's never hard with patience. Good work @jaichai
Thanks for your kind words.
May you and yours be well and love life today.
Namaste, JaiChai
Hey, hey @jaichai! This is actually one of my favorite topics - fungi! It is so incredibly fascinating not only for the medicinal properties that can be found but also the environmental cleanup among just a couple. I love Paul Stamet, too! What an amazing and visionary mind.
Great post!
Alright! I was hoping I'd find another Steemian into Mycology. Since I am so new to this, I'd love to hear what your experiences have been...
Namaste, JaiChai
P.S.
Following you now.
My experience with them is that they may just save the world! This is Paul Stamets view on them and I agree as I've sifted through so much jaw dropping information on mycology and mycoremediation. I also take many medicinally and used them to help heal my dog of blood cancer as they detoxify as well.
Growing - sad to say I've not had much luck in that department - I've tried! This spring I'll visit our local mushroom farm again and see if I'll have better luck this year.
In any case, I put some of what I've learned in this post. They are truly amazing. I think you will be inspired if you don't already know some of this information. Feel free to use and share any part of the old post. I think its worth spreading.
BTW @ewkaw is someone else that is passionate about fungi! :)
https://steemit.com/fungifriday/@youhavewings/fungi-friday-mushrooms-to-the-rescue
Just read your excellent post!
I think I recognized some umbrellas, funnel chanterelles, wild oyster, yellow club and coral, and russian emetica?
Fun-gi On, Dude!!
Namaste, JaiChai
That's awesome! I love mushrooms :) I am so glad to hear your success with gardening in such a short time. I understand about the difficulty in understanding what the plants need, but then when you let go and they have the right environment -- they know exactly what to do! Your story is great :)
Thanks for the nice comment.
Namaste, JaiChai
Good luck with the new hobby, more hobbies are always good keeps you busy.
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