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Mycologist Hannah Hemmelgarn showing off some oyster mushroom spawn during a Thursday workshop on mushroom growing at the Salem Community Garden. Hemmelgarn is an education program coordinator with the Center for Agroforestry at the University of Missouri in Columbia.
Workshop attendees learning how to grow winecap mushrooms in a flower bed at the Salem Community Garden.
New Salem arrival Patrick Stewart drilling holes into an oak log to inoculate it with Shiitake mushroom spawn.
Michelle Welker and Rob Szydlosky of Sligo learning how to inoculate oak logs with Shiitake mushroom spawn at the Salem Farmer’s Market pavilion.
Mycologist Hannah Hemmelgarn showing off some oyster mushroom spawn during a Thursday workshop on mushroom growing at the Salem Community Garden. Hemmelgarn is an education program coordinator with the Center for Agroforestry at the University of Missouri in Columbia.
Workshop attendees learning how to grow winecap mushrooms in a flower bed at the Salem Community Garden.
New Salem arrival Patrick Stewart drilling holes into an oak log to inoculate it with Shiitake mushroom spawn.
Michelle Welker and Rob Szydlosky of Sligo learning how to inoculate oak logs with Shiitake mushroom spawn at the Salem Farmer’s Market pavilion.
Mushroom season has arrived in the Ozarks, and eager foragers are already scouring the countryside looking for the elusive Morels. While nothing can replace the thrill of Missouri’s mushroom hunting, a growing movement of landowners are using their forests to farm their own fungi. The practice is one element of agroforestry which seeks to grow forests strong and put forested land to use for non-timber products.
“Forest farming is the intentional manipulation and management of forested land to improve forest stands and produce plants, parts of plants, fungi and other biological materials for edible, medicinal or other specialty uses,” says Education Program Coordinator Hannah Hemmelgarn of the Center for Agroforestry at the University of Missouri in Columbia. “Products which can be forest farmed in Missouri include syrup from black walnut trees, American ginseng, pine straw or cones and of course mushrooms like wine caps, oysters and Shiitakes.”
On Thursday, MU Extension hosted Hemmelgarn to teach the fundamentals of agroforestry during a workshop at Salem’s Ozark Natural and Cultural Resource Center. Hemmelgarn said agroforestry is particularly beneficial as its wild-simulated approach preserves wildlife habitat instead of replacing it with a cash crop monoculture. This helps ensure there is game for hunting and also helps pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. She added that mushroom cultivation also gives a unique view into one of earth’s most interesting forms of life.
“Fungi is not an animal and it is not a plant, it is this other kingdom of life, so there is still a lot of mystery involved - even for mycologists who study fungi,” Hemmelgarn said. “Even today there are many mushrooms species not yet named by humans, and it is possible mushrooms you find aren’t named and could be named after you.”
Hemmelgarn later shared viable mushroom spores have even been discovered in outer space. When a mushroom releases its spores, they also don’t fall out but actually shoot out faster that a bullet.
There are three ways mushrooms can be grown at home, which were described during the workshop. Depending on the mushrooms sought, Hemmelgarn said the methods include cultivating them in a garden bed or growing them on logs with a totem or drill and fill approach. A common element required for all methods is spawn, which is a substance inoculated with spores that can be used to grow mushroom by introducing it to a growing medium.
Hemmelgarn demonstrated all three methods for the workshop’s attendees. At the Salem Community Garden, she showed how oyster mushroom spawn and vertically-stacked oak logs can be used for the totem approach. She also demonstrated how winecap spawn and spread straw can be used in a flower bed to grow the fungi. At the Salem farmer’s market pavilion, Hemmelgarn led attendees in inoculating oak logs with Shiitake spawn using custom-designed equipment.
A few fungimentals to mushroom growth Hemmelgarn shared are to avoid conifer logs or chips as a medium of growth and to watch out for slugs and snails. Resources Hemmelgarn referenced for prospective mushroom growers include Mizzou’s Center for Agroforestry, the Missouri Mycological Society and online retailers at fieldforest.net and fungi.com. She added to look for books authored by Peter McCoy and Paul Stamets.
Hemmelgarn concluded by saying the workshop was so popular that potential attendees had to be turned away for lack of space. She said another workshop will be organized to meet the local demand in the not too distant future.
Sarah Hultine-Massengale of Dent County’s MU Extension Office added that once the mushrooms at the Salem Public Gardens are ready for harvest, a class will be hosted on how best to cook and serve them.
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