Stamets mentions inoculating an outdoor patch with three different species then being rewarded with multiple flushes of different fungus in their respective seasons. That sounds pretty good to me! oysters in spring, garden giant in summer, parasol in fall and blewit in winter? Count me in!
Thing i'm wondering is, are all species compatible with each other? Or will the competition between the two affect them negatively? For instance, Stamets recommends oysters and other saprophytes be employed to combat
honey mushroom invasions.
When we talk about
fungi "competing", do we mean they compete because they use the same limited substrate the way a vegetable competes with weeds for limited soil nutrients? Or do they go into bio-chemical warfare like the way
black walnut secretes juggalone (not sure how to spell) to kill of competition around it?
If I were to inoculate a "polyculture" in an outdoor bed, would it be necessary to inoculate all species at the same time? Or could I make a saprophyte spore slurry after each mushroom hunting foray to introduce new kinds as i find them? Would the already established mycelium prevent those spores from germinating and growing? I imagine it would since fully colonized substrates are less vulnerable to mold but then again, that being the case, i dont understand how mold wont establish itself on substrate that is already colonized, but multiple species of mushrooms will
fruit on the same log (or are they just establishing themselves before the log is fully colonized by something else?)