Improving Soil Quality Using Mushrooms
June Monthly Meeting
Tuesday, June 15th 6:00 – 7:00 pm
with Tavis Lynch
Adding mushrooms to your garden can help in many ways. They can bring valuable nutrition to your plants, aid in soil aeration, and even suppress weeds! Learn about the mushroom that can change the way you garden forever.
Tavis is an amateur mycologist from Cumberland, Wisconsin. He operates a shiitake mushroom farm in the northwest corner of the state and is a mycology instructor for 22 schools in the Upper Midwest. He has been studying wild and cultivated fungi since the 1980s and has written three books on the topic. Go Brewers.
Join the Monthly Zoom Meeting here
Community Science Update
We introduced our community science project during our April monthly meeting. If you weren’t able to attend, don’t worry! We’ve recorded it for you. In addition to finding cool fungi, folks who complete all challenges or upload an observation every month can have the opportunity to win some MMS swag at the end of the year.
June Challenge – Cerioporus squamosus
This month, as you’re out looking for mushrooms, keep an eye out for Cerioporus squamosus (previously known as Polyporus squamosus). This polypore is also known by its common names: Dryad’s saddle or Pheasant back. It’s most often found growing on hardwood stumps, logs, and trees and can be identified by its distinctive, flattened scales on the cap (squamosus means “scaly” in Latin). Learn more about this species here. As a bonus, if you find this fungus outside of the Arboretum, it is considered edible and is much easier to find than morels. Happy hunting!
Featured Observation
So far, our community has documented 30 different species at the Arboretum. This cool observation was submitted by Stephanie Petersen in April. Urnula craterium or Devil’s Urn can be seen through May and into June, so there’s still a chance to see it this year.
Ways to Connect
We have a number of different ways that members can reach out to each other and we want to make sure everyone knows how to stay in touch!
We have a Google Group (https://groups.google.com/g/madison-mycological-society) that was mostly inactive, but we would love for folks to use it. You may see some more activity there from board members as we resurrect this really helpful tool! Please join by sending an email to mad-myco-soc-list+join@googlegroups.com.
We also have a Facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/1676228212462783) where members have been posting photos of their finds and sharing info!
We also have a community Slack (https://madisonmycosociety.slack.com)! Slack is a channel-based messaging platform which allows users to chat in real time. Click this link to join!
Forays
We are excited to have you join us in person this year for forays! Please be advised, we have a strict COVID protocol that is subject to change as the pandemic continues to change over time. We will be limiting capacity for forays, so please be sure to fill out this form (below) as soon as possible to help our whole MMS family be able to participate. We look forward to seeing you. You will receive a confirmation email and further details from the Board of Directors when you have been successfully signed up.
Thank you!