Maybe you picture mushrooms as cute little Mario cartoons. Maybe they\u2019re a tasty addition to your pizza toppings. Or, maybe you\u2019re a bit grossed out by them. As your resident plant nerds, we\u2019re a little obsessed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today, we\u2019re diving into the fantastical world of fungi and the exciting new developments we\u2019re cultivating and incorporating into our farming practices!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mycology, the field of study that encompasses fungi, yeast, and mushrooms, still has a lot to learn about itself. Every day, we\u2019re learning more and more about fungi relationships and how they interact with the plant world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This relationship we\u2019ve uncovered stems from the premise of the underground rhizosphere (which is a pretty expansive swath). Fungi play a major role in consuming decaying material, and they store that as energy for new plants. It\u2019s among nature\u2019s beautifully unseen symbioses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As it relates to farming and commercial agriculture, the ability to harness this symbiotic relationship is burgeoning and bursting at the seams with potential. It\u2019s fairly new and totally exciting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s an old adage notorious for making heads spin, but in this case, it doesn\u2019t matter if you heard the rhetorical tree fall, because the forest and mushrooms certainly did. Dead plants and fallen trees are absolutely inundated with spores from surrounding mushrooms. Spores are like seeds, but much, much smaller.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the fungi spores germinate in the dead and decaying plant material, they form a fungal network that rapidly consumes the tree – specifically, the carbon molecules it\u2019s composed of. Most of the time, we don\u2019t see this network unless we go looking for it. Instead, we see the mushrooms it produces, which are like the fruit of the fungus. Just like the apple off the apple tree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The fungi use the nutrients from the dead tree to expand its fungal network into the soil, which is incredibly beneficial for the environment. The network is like a nutrient highway, allowing all kinds of molecules to be redistributed across the underground forest floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course, \u201cbad\u201d fungi exist. Not all fungi are fun guys. But lots of fungi are critical to cultivating a healthy forest terrain. These good guy fungi are known as mycorrhizal fungi<\/strong>, and their underground networks can stretch for miles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n