All About Mushrooms

Enlarge Image Image Gallery Follow our tips about growing mushrooms on the homestead, and this healthy harvest of shiitakes can be on your kitchen table in no time. PHOTO: WILLIAM D. ADAMS

The key to success in homesteading self-sufficiency is learning how to make alliances with other living things. We’re used to working with plants and animals on the homestead, but don’t forget the fungi! Fungi are an entirely separate kingdom of life that has much to offer. These fascinating beings can help create a more balanced, integrated and productive backyard ecosystem.

About Fungi

The thing all fungi have in common — and what distinguishes them from the other biological kingdoms — is they exude powerful enzymes to digest their food externally, absorbing nutrients directly into their cells. Reproduction among fungi centers on spores, which are carriers of genetic information for further generations. This is similar to the reproduction of plants via seeds, but on a far smaller scale — the billions of spores are microscopic.

When conditions are right, spores germinate into long strands called hyphae. Each hypha contains half the genetic material needed to produce fertile offspring. When compatible hyphae fuse, their genetic material combines and eventually grows into a complicated mass called mycelium. The mushrooms you see on your walks outside are special reproductive structures grown by the mycelium to release spores and begin the cycle anew.

Mushrooms are divided into four classes, each with a unique relationship with plants. Parasitic mushrooms feed on the tissues of living plants, usually killing the host plant or tree; endophytic mushrooms live within the tissues of plants, trees and grasses without harming them; mycorrhizal mushrooms form mutually supportive relationships with plants (including many crops) in the root zone; and saprophytic mushrooms are decomposers that feed on dead organic tissues while breaking them down into simpler components, making them available to other members of the local ecology and speeding the formation of soil humus. The saprophytic class includes the easiest species for home cultivation.

Five Functions of Fungi

Edibles. Mushrooms are packed with nutrition. They’re rich in protein, minerals, ergosterols (precursors to vitamin D), B vitamins, fiber and complex carbohydrates.

Be aware that a few species are lethally toxic, and no mushroom should be eaten unless you are absolutely certain of its identity and safety. This caution applies as much to cultivated as it does to wild species. Shiitake (Lentinula edodes) and oyster mushrooms, for example, are easy to identify when they fruit on cultivated logs. A species such as edible nameko (Pholiota nameko), however, is a close enough look-alike to the deadly galerina (Galerina autumnalis) to require as careful identification on inoculated logs as it does if gathered in the wild.