I am currently taking a weekly evening class on growing oyster mushrooms. Our instructor, Chase, spent the 6 months following his oil field job layoff studying mushrooms, and experimenting with their production. He is enthusiastically passing on what he learned.
There is SO MUCH about mushrooms that I did not know. Of course the rather meticulous, involved propagation is part of that, but the nature of a mushroom colony is quite different than what I imagined. The part we all see, know and eat is such a tiny element in the being.
Moreover, mushrooms exist in a huge number of varieties, most of which adapt to their surroundings in surprising ways. My weekly class is zooming over the tip of the iceberg.
Among the surprising gems Chase has introduced are experimenters and innovators creating leather, construction material and other products from mushrooms. Having learned that a week ago, I tripped over this article about the very people he was discussing.