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Cultivation: Farmer smells profit in gourmet fungi
Posted by Psynaut on Thursday, August 05 @ 08:18:09 EDT (794 reads)
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 Denzil Sturgiss grew up on a property in the rugged headwaters of the Shoalhaven River and until about six years ago had never heard of truffles.
He has still never tasted the great French delicacy used to flavour gourmet food, but hopes it will generously fund his retirement. Mr Sturgiss, 60, is one of the small band of NSW farmers who have taken a punt on producing one of the world's most elusive and expensive food items.
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Cultivation: Magic mushrooms are cash crop
Posted by Psynaut on Tuesday, April 13 @ 07:10:43 EDT (1094 reads)
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The mushrooms are produced in clinical conditions
Ellen Timiney's home, on an otherwise ordinary Plymouth street, is a haven for hallucinogenic mushrooms.
Step inside her Plymouth flat and you are greeted by the moistness which mushrooms demand.
She has turned the burgeoning demand for the fungi into a business, by growing magic mushrooms for sale.
Ms Timiney grows them legally, then distributes the crop to cafes and shops across the South West.
It is part of a retail boom in the psychedelic fungi which have a similar effect to LSD.
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Cultivation: Alger wants to share mushroom cultivation formula
Posted by Psynaut on Tuesday, April 13 @ 07:06:05 EDT (614 reads)
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CADILLAC - Michigan farmers always can use another crop to generate cash and a former NASA engineer wants to help them.
Donald Alger, who retired from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, spent almost 25 years experimenting in its laboratories, in his spare time, to develop a way to grow Shiitake mushrooms using pine trees from land he owns near his native Manton. The Michigan Department of Transportation took part of his property for U.S. 131 and now his dreams of operating a mushroom-growing business are gone.
"They refused to offer any compensation for our treated pine trees, so we took them to court," he said. "We will not be able to commercially produce the Shiitake mushrooms on our Manton farm because MDOT has destroyed the very center of the 40-acre track."
The trees were treated with his secret formula that would allow mushrooms to grow on pine, which naturally has anti-bodies against fungus.
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Cultivation: Fungi and Ants
Posted by Psynaut on Sunday, April 04 @ 05:43:59 EDT (334 reads)
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 Long before humans started farming, in fact long before humans even existed, the first farmers were ants. Some tropical ants collect leaves which they use to grow fungi in their undergound nests. The ants cannot digest the leaves directly, and so they feed exclusively on the fungi that they farm. The leafcutter ants, or attine ants, include the genus Atta and they eat a significant amount of vegetation - typically 12 - 15% of all of the leaves produced in South American forests. They may have been eating fungi for up to 50 million years, and during that time they have co-evolved with their fungal partners.
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