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thosemynikes
Gangster


Registered: 01/18/06
Posts: 132
Loc: CA, monterey bay
Last seen: 15 years, 9 months
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How do you become a mycologist?
#5578808 - 05/01/06 08:41 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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i am a college student and would have loved to have taken mycology classes if they were offered at my school, preferably even become a mycologist one day. this is a question more directed towards mushroom john or actually educated mycologist, what classes did you have to take? what levels of math and how many years of education? what jobs are offered being a mycologist? if anyone has any answers to these questions or answers to questions i didnt list i would really appreciate it, thanks.
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MustardMan
Peace Frog


Registered: 10/18/05
Posts: 970
Last seen: 5 years, 5 months
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Re: How do you become a mycologist? [Re: thosemynikes]
#5578955 - 05/01/06 09:04 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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I would also like to know this
-------------------- Wild Psilocybe Ovoideocystidiata
 Cultivated Cubensis

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asci
HONGO

Registered: 03/22/06
Posts: 111
Loc: oregon
Last seen: 2 years, 7 months
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Re: How do you become a mycologist? [Re: MustardMan]
#5579455 - 05/01/06 10:24 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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i started with general education and majored in forest ecology. graduated with a BS, and got accepted to graduate school. my masters thesis consisted of genetic variation of morchella elata complex found on recent wildfire burns of the pacific northwest. i'm still working on this subject, but i also have other projects in mycology that are not related with school. so, i'm still just an amateur mycologist until i finish my doctorate work.
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mjshroomer
Sage
Registered: 07/21/99
Posts: 13,774
Loc: gone with my shrooms
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Re: How do you become a mycologist? [Re: thosemynikes]
#5581040 - 05/02/06 10:50 AM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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Their are many sundry fuields related to mycology and most began with botany, biology and microbiology, extending into taxonomy, chemical analysis and other various fields including cultivation of edibles.
you need to take some courses in those fields, preferably some local mycology classes which various community colleges offer each year. Lane COmmunity college in Eugene, Oregon has a great clas with Steven OPollock's friend Freeman Rhoades.
Then the courses branche into separate fields of interest.
Join local mycological groups in your region or area and learn the diffenerentr families and their species and formtheir you spread oput and pick a particular family of mushrooms to study.
There are also many mycologist you can find on the internet who manage mushroom forays similar to my trips to se asia but those are usually for edible shrooms.
I fell in love with the spirit of the mushrooms and they told me to learn all I could about them and that is what I have done for my entire adult life form 32 to 65 or so here. mj
ALso many usniversities also have psychoactive drug plant courses and shrooms are but one facet of the myriad family of mycota.
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thosemynikes
Gangster


Registered: 01/18/06
Posts: 132
Loc: CA, monterey bay
Last seen: 15 years, 9 months
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Re: How do you become a mycologist? [Re: mjshroomer]
#5581218 - 05/02/06 11:50 AM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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thanks a lot mushroom john, i fell in love with mushrooms the first time i saw one when i was kid,just amazed me. but thank you posters i think there is a mycology society at ucsc im about to check out. do you happen to know the highest level of math you were required to take?? and what jobs are available to mycologist?
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mjshroomer
Sage
Registered: 07/21/99
Posts: 13,774
Loc: gone with my shrooms
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Re: How do you become a mycologist? [Re: thosemynikes]
#5582029 - 05/02/06 04:32 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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Well you study and go into a field which interests you.
Even becoming a teacher you can take students on forays to collect specimens for lab work. If you are a real mycologist then you end up spending about 90% of your time in a lab and not in the field so you lose touch with everything that grows out doors.
Paul Stamets is a good example of a lab worker. He has hardly gone picking shrooms in many years.
Gary Menser is dead now but he was a real estate agent all of his adult life. He made extra money at workshops and taking mushroom pickers on European journeys for tryffles int he Winter Spring months in the Mediteranean region. At $3000.00 for 30 day trip. During the rest of the year he sold real estate and picked local chantrelles and Matsutake along the Oregon coast near Florence.
Most of his information, as does all of ours, comes from the literature on the shelves and stacks at university libraries.
Unfortunately here in the PNW, someone has excised about 70% percent or more of most photos and articles from books and hournal publications at the university of Washingtron's library shelves, including all of R. Gordon Wasson's articles with Roger Heim in French from four different journals. Over forty papers or so on that subject in French alone are gone form the books. Very disgusting for people who want to further their research in this vast new field of ethnomycology.
The life magazine Wasssonarticle has had all the pages torn from it as has many other journal publications from the library.
Even my article on Hawaiian mushrooms in the Chemistry departments library at the U of W had the photos razored out of the pages.
A friend told me he went to read the article and someone had cut the pages all up.
So luckily, I still had one actual reprint on the original paper left in my files and I donated that to the U of W. And they repaired the book.
mj
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MustardMan
Peace Frog


Registered: 10/18/05
Posts: 970
Last seen: 5 years, 5 months
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Re: How do you become a mycologist? [Re: mjshroomer]
#5582109 - 05/02/06 04:56 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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Sounds cool 
Sorry to hear about the destruction of those books, that type of stuff really pisses me off...
Just curious, are there any well paying jobs that spring off mycology?
-------------------- Wild Psilocybe Ovoideocystidiata
 Cultivated Cubensis

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georgeM
Human


Registered: 07/05/05
Posts: 1,748
Loc: Osage Cuestas
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Re: How do you become a mycologist? [Re: MustardMan]
#5582797 - 05/02/06 07:41 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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Well paying ?legitimate? jobs? heehee georgem
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MustardMan
Peace Frog


Registered: 10/18/05
Posts: 970
Last seen: 5 years, 5 months
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Re: How do you become a mycologist? [Re: georgeM]
#5583129 - 05/02/06 08:56 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
georgeM said: Well paying ?legitimate? jobs? heehee georgem

Na, not dealing, like real proffesion 
Do they have any doctors that research mushrooms and medicine? That might be cool.
-------------------- Wild Psilocybe Ovoideocystidiata
 Cultivated Cubensis

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thosemynikes
Gangster


Registered: 01/18/06
Posts: 132
Loc: CA, monterey bay
Last seen: 15 years, 9 months
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Re: How do you become a mycologist? [Re: MustardMan]
#5586619 - 05/03/06 04:46 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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i deffinatley know that mycologist are important to the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. and you can deffinatley be in the field of medicine and mycology, that is if you want to be dealing with foot fungus :/
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Gumby
Fishnologist


Registered: 06/13/01
Posts: 26,656
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Re: How do you become a mycologist? [Re: thosemynikes]
#5586643 - 05/03/06 04:53 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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It should be noted that most mycologists are being phased out by molecular biologists these days... Same goes with a lot of "specific" biological fields.
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GGreatOne234
Stranger
Registered: 12/23/99
Posts: 8,946
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Re: How do you become a mycologist? [Re: thosemynikes]
#5586649 - 05/03/06 04:54 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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a local mycology club is a good way to learn a lot.
if your area doesnt have a club, then start one yourself.
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MustardMan
Peace Frog


Registered: 10/18/05
Posts: 970
Last seen: 5 years, 5 months
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Re: How do you become a mycologist? [Re: GGreatOne234]
#5586768 - 05/03/06 05:21 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
GGreatOne234 said: a local mycology club is a good way to learn a lot.
if your area doesnt have a club, then start one yourself.
Thats one thing my area does have 
UVA hosts mycology talks etc. for free on random occasions, and Im thinking about joinging one of the clubs--it would be cool to actually go mushroom hunting with an expert, or a team of experts
-------------------- Wild Psilocybe Ovoideocystidiata
 Cultivated Cubensis

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thosemynikes
Gangster


Registered: 01/18/06
Posts: 132
Loc: CA, monterey bay
Last seen: 15 years, 9 months
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Re: How do you become a mycologist? [Re: MustardMan]
#5587308 - 05/03/06 07:14 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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deffinatley, i know UCSC offers a one day mycology class and im sure theres mycology societys around, thanks for the info gumby and great one much appreciated.
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mjshroomer
Sage
Registered: 07/21/99
Posts: 13,774
Loc: gone with my shrooms
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Re: How do you become a mycologist? [Re: thosemynikes]
#5589241 - 05/04/06 07:55 AM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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The one I took was boaut t m12-16 weeks and that was years ago a t a community college.
A one day course is something I use to give in three o hours.
But then I am teaching a specific family of shrooms. SOme teach chantrelles and morels at various times of the years. The first thni ing I alrways teach people are what they should never pick.
that i eliminates most n dangers for amateurs.
mj
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shroominDole
Stranger


Registered: 12/19/05
Posts: 482
Loc: O.C . S o. C a l .
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Re: How do you become a mycologist? [Re: mjshroomer]
#5589405 - 05/04/06 09:37 AM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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As mentioned because of where the big money is and the politics of getting funding for large institutions.....its now heading towards most of those making money in mycology are molecular scientists and the funding is just not there for traditional reasearch.....which can lead to big problems down the line
And Gary Menser also exported/ brokered huge amounts of Chanterelles for the commercial wild mushroom markets for Europe in the 1980s
-------------------- Worlds Largest 'Liberty Cap' (Cali Libs Confirmed !) ' Comments On Hallucinogenic Agarics And The Hallucinations Of Those Who Study Them ' Alexander H. Smith Mycologia vol.69 1977
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