My dad owns a house with a nice big yard in northern coastal B.C. (near the Queen Charlotte islands, same kind of climate) Since as long as I can remember he has always been into growing things. when I was young he planted lots of fruit trees and experimented with grafting techniques. We also had raspberries, currents, tomatoes, carrots, cabbage, beats, corn, rhubarb, pumpkins, peas, zucchini, asparagus etc. We always produced our own compost piles contributing any suitable organic waste, including table scraps, grass clippings, useless parts of plants, and purchased manure. Iv always considered my dad a talented grower of plants. He produced, in my opinion, some of the best cherries and raspberries that are available.
Recently my father retired/was layed off from his job ans is now devoting more or less full time to his "farm", if you can call it that. My dad is one of those people who believe in growing things organically. His main endeavor now is bee keeping, a hobby which he has been involved with for 3 years now. I don't know much about it, but it seems like a similar hobby to mushrooms in terms of the attention to detail,scholarship and strong control of environmental conditions that are required for satisfactory results. My father has also taken to the growth of a variety of species of garlic, which he sees as being well suited to the growing conditions he can provide.
However, my father is trying to grow in less than optimal conditions. firstly, The property is located next to a river which has flooded his property twice in the past ten years (and I figure it will do so again at least once in the next ten, especially if global warming does materialize in force). Flooding is definitely bad for growing in this case because it happens in the summer when crops need to be growing. Secondly the soil in his porperty is not very nutritious, If I recall theres lots of sand and clay in the soil. Thirdly, because the property is surrounded by a tree line that just happens to perfectly block out the sun at every point in the day, the feilds are in the shade for much of the day.
My dad wants to get a new property thats better suited to growing, and frankly I agreed with him.Unfortunately in that area all of the prime farmland is already owned and most of it is devloped into subdivisions and commercial/downtown real estate. I though my dad was basically screwed.
That was before I knew much about growing mushrooms. The other month I got a chance to watch some videos of speeches by Paul Stamets. Some of the stuff that I saw was amazing, like the pile of diesel contaminated soil that was inoculated with oyster mushrooms, or the mycelium that can take out an entire ant colony, or the worlds largest organism (a giant mycelial mat.) One thing that was particularly impressed upon me was the ability of mycelium to brake rough organic matter down into primo plant growing soil.
So over the past little while i have been thinking about how my dad could use mycelium to produce some awesome plant growing conditions on his farm. I did further research (though not really intended as research at the time) and found new facts that seemed to support the idea of growing mushrooms at the property. In a video interview/tour with Darryl Hannah, Stamets recounts how a friend used some sort of fungi (don't think it was mushroom fungi, but it could have been) to grow giant sized onions. he shows one of the onions, and it is about the size of a toddlers head. Apparently the friend also grew a control patch of onions that performed only averagely. I figured onions are similar to garlic (well maybe not but they LOOK similar at least) so why couldn't my dad do the same thing.
Then I got to thinking about just growing mushrooms on that property, as a worthy crop in their own right, regardless of benefits to the "ecosystem". A few years ago after failing to grow mushrooms for my first attempt (not a growing problem, my parents caught me) I decided to try mushrooms hunting instead, since the environment is very well suited for that there. I found tonnes of species, some only in fields, others only on lawns, some in the forests and some that grew almost everywhere. Somehow though, I never found a single Psilocybe (not even under rhododendron bushes.) In my own yard I found at least 15 different kinds of mushrooms, some I found that I believed to be multiple sub-generas (or whatever the word it is species, strain im not sure)of the same general mushroom. By far the most prevalent where the Gallerinas that grew absolutely everywhere. If only they where active and not poisonous, I could have found 50 pounds wet (although not all from my dads property) without too much trouble at all(they grew on almost every lawn in town). There where also Amanitas and these tiny mushrooms that looked kinda like liberty caps.
As I said earlier my dads property gets allot of shade and the climate is very moist. The name of the river next to the property translates to "Misty River" because fog can often be seen rising from it in the right conditions. It rains constantly, and the sky is generally overcast.
So I was thinking that if my dad where to grow a mushroom on his property it would have to be suited to the conditions, with the main concern in my mind being temperature, its far enough north that it is basically always freezing in the winter and snow sometime lasts from the beginning of November until late march/early April. I don't know anything about Gourmet/Medicinal Mushrooms, but I have often seen the shaggy mane mushroom pictured along with medicinal and gourmet mushrooms. I have seen Shaggy Manes growing just a block away from my dads place. I know theres other edibles and possibly other species that grow wild there. Pine mushrooms (which I think may be more commonly known under a Japanese name) grow there, which are mushroom that will only fruit off of live pine tree roots.
So I figured the time has come to get some expert opinions on this. I actualy have a few questions.
Firstly, what kind of mushrooms would be best suited for commercial outdoor growth on a property like my dads? Secondly, what sort of myceliums (whats the plural of that?) could be grown to support the growth of plants (especially garlic and fruit trees) as well as the rapid production of quality growing soil? Also I dont know if it exists but is there any fungus that could somehow be beneficial to bee colonies?
Thirdly, would being flooded (having up to 3 feet of water covering the dirt) for a period of up to 7 days kill or damage mycelium. If not could it possibly benefit them?
Also if you can think of anything that I might find useful/interesting I would love to hear it.
Thanks for taking the time to read this!
Best regards, KrissKross
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