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OT-ish Re: Fungi - A Primer

Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html

>>I have started using mycorrhizae ( root fungus that takes in nutrients and
shares them with the host plant) this year. They supposedly work great with
plants that have poorly developed root systems and with others such as
tomatoes. 

>Can some one give me a little info on this subject? Or a site I could go to? 
Thanks,  Melody

*Very Little.  And it will be general.  Hope the original poster
(whose name you or I accidently cut off,) sees your plea.

I was given a mycology site, as the owner's job, took him away more often.  So
it was that or it was to die.  I read up, primarily 2 books
by a Paul Stamets.  The Mushroom Cultivator, and The Grower's Guide to
Medicinal and Gourmet Mushrooms.  Famous within the mushroom field.

Mushrooms are "fruitbodies" formed from hairlike "roots" called mycellium,
when enough strength has been stored and a seasonal trigger, like cold or
rains, tells them to go for it.  Yeasts, slime molds, mushrooms, black soot,
white powdery mildew, and penecillin, all are fungi (fun-jI'.)  They fight,
most have sex, cross and mutate.  Largest organism alive is one, 37 acres.

Over harvest of mushrooms in Europe and beginning in the Pacific NW is thought
to be a cause of some deforestation.  10% of what you stand on in a forest,
around a tree, may be fungi.  There are primary decomposers, like Shitake
(cancer reactive, as many are,) that want wood, usually dead, and prefferably
hardwood.  Secondary which wants straw, manure, etc.  This is the common
Agaricus, or button, of which the Portebello is just trained differently.  And
tertiary, underground, nutrient poor, like Truffles.

They are a major decomposing organism in compost.  Some can cause lung
irritaion, i.e., when compost is turned, or when mildew is encountered.  So
they decompose stuff that the plants can use.  Some attatch to roots, and do
conversion on the spot, while others do it nearby, and roots eventually
encounter it.

Sounds as if someone has packaged it like yeast.  Molasses, say a tablespoon
in a gallon or more, can aid them if you water with it once every month or 2. 
Too concentrated and ants arrive.  Ants remember, often harvest aphid honey or
leaves, and cause mold which they farm and eat.  Dampening off is a mold, that
is not as beneficial.  Molds prefer 70% moisture. (So...Bottom water.)

How much they help you will depend on what's in your soil already, I would
think.  But some roots may depend on it.  In a sterile lab, 100 of these float
in the air per cu foot. Normally in a house, the number was 10,000 or 100,000,
I forget.  They are generally perenial.

Mycology, a small mushroom list.
http://www.egroups.com/group/mycology/info.html
Bill

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