North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Stephen Sadler" <Docshiva@Docshiva.org>]

Yes, the associations seem anecdotal.

Is this something you’re going to try?  If so, I do wish you the best of luck.  I’ve grown many mushrooms over the years.  Chantarelle are difficult. 

Boletus are reported associated with pine, fir, oak, silver birch, Manzanita, hemlock, and fir, that I know of.

Cantharellus seem to like fir on the Sierra side of CA, but California live oak in the coastal range.   I don’t have high hopes of it liking other hardwoods, but why not try? 

I’m not above fuzzy science.  My fuzzy generalization as that fungi we like are, as shown in several studies, likely to be unfriendly to fungi we don’t like.  Just that alone would help plants grow better; not a mycorrhizal association, just a living microbicide. 

 

~ Stephen

 

From: nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Kevin Moore
Sent: Friday, May 15, 2009 3:30 PM
To: North American Fruit Explorers
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] mycorrhiza

 

There are many different Mycorhizal fungi that produce fruiting bodies that are good to eat. Certainly I was referring to orchard trees. And they must be inoculated at the time of planting for it to have a chance of working. The fungus species does need to be matched to the tree species in question. This is difficult to do because there have been no published correspondences done that I'm aware of. So you take your best guess. Chanterelles like oaks and other hardwoods, so I'm betting they will like other deciduous nut trees as well, since they also go for Doug Fir. I want to say Porcini mushrooms like pines, but my reference books are at another location so I can't check on that right now. If that is the case, then it would allow for another crop mixed in with nut pines of various types.
In the vegetable garden there is no doubt that Ulmarius or the Elm oyster mushroom greatly benefits vegetable crops grown with it, and it may be weakly mycorhizal, or not. King stropharia is another good mushroom that can be grown in the garden pathways, bringing even more land area into production.

The point of all this is that it is probably virtually pointless in most cases to stir in some commercial preparation and expect any significant benefit from it. But by partnering with various fungi, we can enhance the health of our plants and diversify the produce on our tables. It just needs some planning and research.

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