All Things Fungi 🍄 🇬🇧

Ciao from Apulia, Italy! 🇮🇹 Check out these Russula delica ‘Fungi fresci do bosco’ (fresh fungi of the forest) that I stumbled upon and bought from a roadside vendor here today. I learned that in Italy, you technically need a local permit from the town government to forage - but that you can obtain one for 5 Euros a day by going to the town hall and asking for a mushroom foraging permit. With this permission, you can forage 3 kilos per person per day. I’m thinking of making these with a white whine sauce and chowing down on them before the Incubator tonight ( : (invite below)

Ok scratch that, I actually came back to edit this part here because I learned these particular mushrooms kidna suck. Why couldn’t they have Porcini today??

I’ve been in Europe for a while as you may have noticed -

I was just All Things Fungi Festival in England - in fact, some of you were at the Incubator I hosted before the day I went out to West Sussex for it - the last incubator was ‘hosted’ from Alex & Allyson Grey’s ‘Illusionaries’ art exhibit in London.

This 3 day festival was LIT AF and had fungi educators, entrepreneurs, researchers, etc. from ‘both sides of the pond’

Totally recommend!! I wrote a recap here:

They invited me out here to host a mushroom quiz show and give a talk titled “Spore Power: Envisioning a Future Shaped by Fungal Innovation” with Marc Violo of MycoStories

The whole weekend was crazy cool - the perfect mix of rigorous science, eccentric art, foraging, and straight up FUN.

I’m sure many of you would recognize a lot of the names that were involved - .

Here’s a screenshot of one column of programming from one of the three days - this is a representative slice of the myco action:

A few things I learned: Kew Royal Botanical Gardens (a government funded conservation project in England) is doing incredible research into the Funga of Madagascar and they’re documenting tons of new species through their Fungarium

46,000 fungi in the U.S. have been DNA sequenced on iNaturalist vs. 63 in the UK - Mandie Quark dropped this intel during her awesome keynote

And the main difference in growing conditions between fungi that help humans and fungi that attack humans is temperature - Dr. Elaine Bignell of the British Mycological Society gave. great talk on pathogenic and microscopic fungi, and flew out to Brazil the following day to open a new infectious disease research center studying pathogenic fungi there the day after her talk.

Big things are happening in Fungi Town!

Two days ago I was at the 12th International Medicinal Mushrooms Congress in Bari, Italy - this is a whole other rabbit hole. I need some time to unpack the experience before sharing it more in depth - I intend to report on what I learned there.

IMCC is a heavily research focused and industry facing bi-annual conference that takes place in a different city around the world every iteration. Last edition was in Belgrade, Serbia, the one before that in Nantong, China, etc. The bigwigs of the global mushroom industry are there - including a heavy Chinese research and industry presence. Altogether there aren’t too many people who were in the room - maybe 150 by my count - among them Paul Stamets, who was sitting right in front of me for an hour before I noticed him.

I can’t recommend finding a way into these rooms enough if you’re interested in the business of mushrooms. Just find a way through the door and see what happens.

Alright, I need to eat lunch here - In Italy, lunch is serious business and I must dedicated considerable time and effort to the experience.

Here’s the info for the Incubator today: Please consider throwing any amount of money my way if you appreciate this service.

Venmo @mycopreneur

Or hit me up if you want to sponsor this one a forthcoming one. We’re just getting warmed up and will continue to tweak and improve the experience.

Mycopreneur Incubator is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Mycopreneur Incubator

Time: Sep 26, 2024 10:00 PM Rome (4 PM East Coast Time, 1 pm West Coast Time)

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86142576443?pwd=umESntwFXPC1qbwjpWGpPsaaNJRS1k.1

Meeting ID: 861 4257 6443

Passcode: 228989

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Hit me up with any questions or ideas! Peace fam, see you there.

DW