Hello everyone and thanks for having me in this group! I´m looking forward to join your corporative exchange of knowledge and experience
I am studying International Forest Ecosystem Management in in a small but green city close to Berlin (Eberswalde). Through the studies content and by electing a few extra modules I took some chances to gain a superficial knowledge about mycology, mostly regarding a bunch of plantpathological topics (and a bit about mycorrhizae). In the meantime I took some attemts cultivating a few edible mushroom species, tempeh and koji, as well as some tours of foraging in the forests. With a fast growing fascination of the topic I decided to look for ways that could get me more familiar with the topic, with special interests on forest health (Pathogens and mycorrhizae) and the cultivation of mushrooms as a hobby. Currently I am spending my internship in Palencia (Spain) working partly in the mycorestore project, collaborating with the local institute for fungal biotechnology (IDforest) and another non-scientific project, initiated by a friend from ethiopia, with the aim of developing lowcost/lowtech teks of cultivating edible mushroom species on agricultural waste products. Last one shall be implemented in ethiopia for getting a local production of mushrooms started (it is according to Tatek currently not well established). Our scientific projects here focus on the succession of mycorrhizal communities as well as productivity with a special twist of bringing forest fires as an influencing factor into the ring. Another interesting investigation focusses on the inoculation of Cistus ladanifer seedlings with a Boletus edulis, creating a symbiosis (unfortunatelly this project is pending due to contamination issues). I will soon start a thread that will give your deeper insight especially into our mushroom cultivation project, hoping for some good ideas for improvements ( since our team is semi experienced hehe).
In this spirit, I´m looking forward to a lot of interesting conversations!