I've not seen that yet, but I am seeing such astonishing things as bagged soils/fertilizers pre-inoculated with fungi AND bacteria this year at the local Tr--r S-ly store. Wow!
Well, I'm kicking around the idea of starting one myself, and I'd like to know if there is anyone who has been able to make a go of it. I found this article on the subject very inspiring and feel like there is great potential for a grant funded project and/or a commercial venture: Mycoscience V.62
Truffles do seem to be the most proven species with the current methods, but personally I would be more interested in conifer loving species like Matsutake or Boletes.
Interesting idea Christopher. I've had a bit of experience planting trees here and the conifers definitely seem to sulk until they 'get their roots down' and get good mycorrhyza relationships. I had some Korean pine seedlings that were really yellow when delivered, and stayed yellow for the first couple of years but are (mostly) fine now.
If you could improve the growth of trees by providing trees ready innoculated there may be an market advantage there. As Anne says the only trees I've seen ready innoculated are hazel/truffle trees. I was actually given one as a present, although no sign of truffles yet (my soil is probably a bit cool and acid really, but I live in hope!). I think you would need to demonstrate an advantage over just adding micorrhyza species at the tree planting stage, since it is fairly common and easy to get hold of various fungal innoculants.
This is exactly why trees born naturally are usually hardier than their nursery born cousins.
One way to naturally introduce beneficial fungi is to inoculate grass seed and plant around your trees.
Of course you wouldn't choose a parasitic fungus that has the potential to rot living wood. That is not an example of mycorrhizal fungi, which is symbiotic with the tree host.
William Kellogg wrote:This is exactly why trees born naturally are usually hardier than their nursery born cousins.
One way to naturally introduce beneficial fungi is to inoculate grass seed and plant around your trees.
Of course you wouldn't choose a parasitic fungus that has the potential to rot living wood. That is not an example of mycorrhizal fungi, which is symbiotic with the tree host.
Indeed. I'm working my way through some of the newer research, and it has been definitively proven that mycorrhizals can not consume lignin. Mushroom pickers could have assumed this forever though, since the chantrelle/bolete/etc patch dies also when the tree does.
Now that I've been looking into this a while: it would appear no one in the world is doing this commercially outside of truffles. Tons of great research though.
While I feel this sounds like a great idea, growing mushrooms on young trees may not be good for the trees.
There's no general category that all mushrooms fall into.
There is a big difference between mycorrhizial fungi and saprophytic fungi.
Mycorrhizials are fungi that grow along with the roots of the trees, trading minerals and water for sugars the trees make, and helping the trees communicate with their surroundings.
Saprophytes grow on dead or damaged tissue, breaking the tree down into soil again.
Many trees require mycorrhizae to flourish. Trees that are stressed can be succesptible to saprophytes.
A tree can have either or both. Both can make edible mushrooms, or not. There are myriads of varieties.
It's true that saprophytes such as armillaria or oyster mushrooms can lead to the death of the trees they grow on. Or demonstrate that the tree is on the way out.
You don't want to inoculate young, living trees with these, but on the other hand, they probably wouldn't grow on a healthy tree even if you did. But if you have an injured tree or a fresh stump, you can choose to inoculate it with a mushroom you like instead of letting whatever is wild in the area colonize it. This will help it break down faster and be useful to you during the process of decomposition.
But other mushrooms, such as boletes, truffles, chanterelles, amanitas are mycorrhizial and actively support the trees they grow in concert with. The trees are helped to flourish by inoculating their roots with the mycelium of their symbionts before they are planted.
Anne Miller wrote:Here is a money-making idea:
Inoculated with pisolithus arhizus.
Pisolithus (P tinctorius in this case, which is another name for P. arhizus) is in fact one of the mushroom species that are used as root-dip inoculants to help transplanted seedlings flourish.
https://fungi.com/products/mycogrow_soluble
I know a local nursery that will extend its tree survival warranty from one to five years if you inoculate with a specific fungal mix. So this is a business putting its money where its mouth is -- obviously they believe in its effectiveness.
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