PEP1 : FUNGI

Here is a start that I will edit as people post...

White belt:
Buy and cook edible mushrooms, use a field guide to key out some local mushrooms, go on guided forays, join a club, take a class or workshops, learn about various uses for fungi (edibles, medicinals, remedials, dyes, bioremediation), go to a local mushroom fairie available, learn to photograph fungi in situ, learns local mushroom seasons, can ID 20 local fungi and knows their season/habitat, has cultivated mushrooms at least once, uses fungi in gardening, has dried mushrooms. Has five favorite mushroom recipes. Spreads spores, makes a spore print, can explain mushroom picking etiquette and best practices. Joins a local group. Needs an expert to ID any mushrooms they collect. Collects, IDs, spore prints and dries and saves a couple of specimens. Starts a fungi photo collection.

Green belt: have a field guide and foray kit, can ID 50 local fungi and their season and habitat, can cultivate mushrooms in various ways, has practiced some of the different uses of fungi, gardens with fungi, produces enough edibles to share, barter or sell some, has a stock of dried mushrooms, has preserved mushrooms in 2 other ways (canned, pickled, fermented, powdered), can cook mushrooms five different ways, has used medicinal mushrooms, has made mushroom dyes, has participated in building a mushroom garden, uses mycorrhizal fungi with trees, has propagated by three methods (cardboard, straw, stumps, hydrogen peroxide, petri dish, wet paper bag, PF-tec, grain, sterile transfer, etc), knows about esoteric uses of fungi like mycotecture, mycoart, Fungi burial suits, shamanic uses like questing and acceptance of death.
Can identify something fungi taught them through observation and direct experience. Has started finding their own mushroom patches, needs an expert to confirm any mushroom they collect. Starts a specimen collection, practices one form of mycoremediation

Brown belt
Has visited a mushroom farm, cultivates several varieties of mushrooms regularly, can ID 75 local fungi, participates in ongoing mycoremediation, prepares and uses medicinals, has practicedpst forms of cultivation, has taught others to do the same, forays regularly, starts a local group of none exists. Has recipes for most all the Local edible fungi, has cooked most of them at least once, has collected most of them from the wild at least once, doesn't need an expert for most of the mushrooms they collect. Has led forays. Gives presentations or workshops and teaches the permies, is known on their community as a fungi person,has a specimen collection, uses IMOs or EMs. Has done more than one sort of Myco based art project (dyes, make paper, spore art, etc.), lea rice three forms of mycoremediation, can identify 5 life lessons that mushrooms have taught them,

Black belt
Has done the brown belt topics for years (10 or more), has added to the body of knowledge through citizen science or thoughtful observation, has an extensive specimen collection, knows and can identify 100s of local mushrooms, is known as a local expert by other local experts

Maybe you are hinting at it in the propagation methods listed for green belt, but i think by brown belt, one should be capable of producing spawn instead of using purchased spawn.

Great, and yes I hinted but did not specify, will do!

Thanks,

Seth
Permie chef and radical mycologist