Fungalist - Urban Forage/Mycocatchers

As a personal though, I wondered, since there is so much wood around, very little information on regional mushroom species, and limited time, how could I work on mushroom work in the city?

Documenting local species occurrences no doubt yields a large amount of data -

Click to see species occurring in Mumbai

Fungi in Santacruz, Mumbai
Fungi in Juhu, Mumbai
Fungi in Seven Bungalows, Andheri
Fungi in Goregaon, Mumbai


However, something I worked on with Oikos in rural areas earlier, was a mycocatcher. There is no real special science here, more like if we put out a resource, and since life self-organises and competes, you will usually land up having a range of species that will readily colonise wood or earthen debris.

Bringing wooden debris home from a dead tree next door was possible. so I did that. I had noticed mushrooms growing on the trees (killed by a boring beetle - see Borer Bling), and negotiated to take the sawed logs and wood debris away with me.

Creating this kind of mycocatcher allows an up close and personal view of the process and one can study closely the mechanisms of growth of mushrooms, and have quality control over any edibles that you may happen to 'catch'.  

 

Freshly picked Oyster mushrooms from a harvest from logs

Oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus, above, right) and Wood Ears (Auricularia, below) are among those that can be grown and harvested when such logs are innoculated or ..erm..put out to colonise.

A mesh screen with sawdust and wood chips catches Coprinus (Great for making old school inks)

Schizophyllum commune, very widespread, is apparently used as a medicinal by the Chinese.

And then there are others species that colonise that we should become more familiar with. The polypores are a strange, slightly different bunch, some highly medicinal, part of a billion dollar pharmaceutical industry.