Here we share the vision of the Project Site and how we see it functioning in the future.     As of today, there are 32 days left to meet our fundraising deadline.    We are optimistic and hopeful.   Please watch and consider sharing.   The youtube link is https://youtu.be/K6RtJf53AYE   

 

 

WHEN WE GIVE LIFE TO THE “LITTLE GUYS” EVERYONE WINS!

The Launch Day was a success!    Below are some snap shots of the event day sharing the “happy people”.     We are still tallying up the expenses but it looks like we raised $1000!  Thank you Vilcabamba!       

Our Soil Squad gave it our all to serve and present to our community and share the mission and vision on Living Ground ~ Suelo Vivo.   Our compost is ready and we are spreading the microbes

We continue with our Fundraising efforts as we are charged with an important mission.  There is a huge crises on the soil front as we have lost vast amounts of soil organic matter and we continue to lose soil organic matter at a rapid pace. There is a severe water stress. There is very widespread loss of biodiversity.   Collectivelly, we are heading towards disaster, food crisis and health crisis.   Our project is about reversing this damage and mimicing nature both in operations (business structure) and in restoring the soil to ensure health for all living things.       Our deadline to acquire the project site is March 15.    We continue to ask for support.  Our intuitions are strong this project will rise when the “little good guys” come together.    There is still sharing and supporting required to reach our goal.   

Will you be a part of this important project?

Fundraiser

               

                      

Here we present the Project with love, intention and courage!         

 

Welcome to the last day of 2022.
This is a note to thank you all those who came to support us last Thursday night at the Gala and Launch where we shared our passion the Soil Squad has for our work in spreading the microbes.  We also hope you see the intensity and importance of this work, this mission and how it is foundational for health and change.     As we shared, this is a paradigm shift and we are dedicated to the SOILution and the way forward.
We continue to ask for help and support.   We do not wish to take for taking-sakes and are willing to work with people to give-back so that everyone wins.    We are requesting you share our mission as we do sense and feel deeply this will be successful when the “little good guys” amass and work together.
If you feel inclined and moved to financially support this project, we are willing to discuss possibilities for us to give back to you.  We desire to mimic the microbes so that everyone wins!
Here we share a “garden package” – instant garden – where all proceeds will go to the fundraiser.   Perhaps we could consult!   I am also willing to offer Live Blood Consults too.    Our microbe compost is ready and so are we.   There are so many possibilities in the collaboration project as diversity and symbiosis wins!  Our primary mission, share and move the microbes, is in full speed ahead.
Also, we invite locals to come visit the project site and take a peek at the potential.   Come take a walk with us around the site and buildings and see our vision with us.    We’d be honored!
Thank you again from the bottom of our hearts!  Let’s make 2023 the BEST EVER!
Leisha and the Soil Squad

I am begining to understand that the desception of the matrix in ways deeper than imagined and it is digusting.   Species banking is becoming big business…and it is putting a “worth” on nature. The deception forms as many are participating  thinking they are “protecting” nature. It appears good…and it is not. The worth of a species or a sector of nature is now determined by the law of economics – when there is low supply, demand and value increases.

Under the layers….more is being revealled.    Can economics blend with ecology?

“Eco” is our dwelling, our house. “Ology” is the study, observation and learning. Nomics is “law”. The study of our dwelling and the law of our dwelling. Again, can they be blended?

Giving “credit” to nature is how the matrix is connecting ecology and economics. It is already big business as it snuck in from the sidelines disguising as something “good” for nature. It gives value on nature as exchangable credits…good credits offset bad credits. It is giving permision for destruction as long as good credits are held.

Biodiversity is now an economic farm of capital, nature capital.  This is the business of nature. They have made nature a commodity.

This IS THE MATRIX!     

We have been trying to save nature because it is the “right thing to do” and systems have been created to “save”. My gosh, this is so horrible. The scales have tipped…and the pricelessness of nature is now given value. Whenever we put a “value” on nature, we are participating. I don’t know what the answer is…and I am not sure we will find one now other than taking a good look out our personal selves and where it is participates in that Matrix and buy into it.

Personally, I am committed to doing more research and taking a good scrutinizing look at the model created for Living Ground. Where is it buying into this matrix? Where can it be separated so that it is NOT in that matrix?

Philosophically, this is a challenge!  But it is not impossible.   Our task at Living Ground is to consider and ensure we are not swallowed into the matrix.   We are not sure how to do this…but placing attention on this the future.

To start, we are detailing our “values manifesto” so that now and in the future, it is a map or frame-work so that deceipt can not penetrate.     We also are considering offering a mandatory “Living Ground Boot Camp” mini course for any current and future leader of Living Ground.   This mini course will educate on the “little guys” and challenge the programs of our thinking and concieving that has been muddied and muddlied form our cultural learning.   All leaders must go through this mini course!

Our task now is research and deep thought.   I think it is time to change the view of “as above, so below” to “so below as above”.    What can the community of microbes teach us about operating?

Here we present some photos of the first Microbe 101 Workshop presented at Madre Tierra November 24th and 25th.    There were 29 participants in the workshop from diverse and different backgrounds.    The intention and mission of the presentations was to help others enter into the paradigm shift of understanding the importance of the microbes instead of being afraid of “germs”.     The Soil Squad feels this mission was successful.   We are looking forward to presenting many more workshops and refining and improving our work.

 

Current Status of Our Fundraising

On January 6th, the dream and vision of Living Ground ~ Suelo Vivo was presented to the community here in Southern Ecuador.   The intention was to share  hope that, together, we could actually enact a solution to the state of affairs we are all facing and enduring.   I do feel many of us know what the problem is.   Here is a solid  “soilution”! 

Are we ready?!    

A US Foundation (whose intention is global food sovereignty) gifted us with a tractor and a Mighty Mike Microbe Compost turner.    A huge gift that enables us to make massive amounts of biologically rich compost.    The Foundation’s  name is “River of Kindness”   So, we have the equipment.    Over the past two years, I have been in actively studying and applying experiential knowledge of the teachings of Dr Elaine Ingham (www.soilfoodweb.com).  We have the knowledge.    We have negotiated a long term lease on land and a potential to purchase two parcels.  We have the land.   Now, we need the team and the financial means to make this happen.     Call me crazy, but I see it all coming together easily.

As I shared in the presentation on January 6th (see video below), I have no intention of “running” a business nor do I wish too.    BUT THIS IS IMPORTANT.    I would much prefer to walk next to others in this dream as a group.   So, I am giving it my best shot to inspire others to collaborate.    If it doesn’t work, I just make a lot of compost and share with clients who want to regenerate in a small scale.     We are gearing up to do a fundraiser and that will be announced soon.

 THE PODS & LEADERS

We need leaders to rise with intention and focus.   At the workshop, many did sign up for PODs.   This is an amazing opportunity at so many levels.  Not only can we regenerate the soils and remove the harmful chemicals and sprays seeping into our food system,  we can harvest amazing results at all levels of existance from the smallest of the microbes to the human being.   We can reduce farmers/growers input costs; we can reduce water needs; we can increase crop yields; and, my favourite, we can ensure plants have nutritional fullness (human health).  This Operation Microbes means everyone wins (profits).    It really is a win/win/win!

The vision….

  1. have a location that is producing live microbe rich composts, teas and extracts that will be spread locally and beyond.
  2. have a large greenhouse for medicinal and rare plants
  3. a market stand and hang out with elixirs, tonics, medicinal spices, herbs and foods.   
  4. we will sell only products produced in microbe soils.   Growers can sell their produce all year round.   
  5. we will create a full-blown active soil microscope laboratory.   
  6. we will help growers convert to microbes and away from chemicals
  7. we will help targeted growers to grow  plants for essential oils and purchase their plants to make the essential oils in a distillery.   
  8. we will have a workshop area and train, teach and guide regeneration
  9. we will help growers produce more and reduces costs.   
  10. we will gain our health and microbiome strength from the foods grown in microbe rich soils.   
  11. we will create art around the microbes and sell T-Shirts and Base Ball Caps with microbe art and “I love shit” (spanish and english). 

It will be an education center, hang out, and fully alive business.   Everyone will win.  Profit sharing is horizontal so everyone benefits.

Can you see it?   

Here is a view of the presentation in English and Spanish  (and, sorry, it announces this is January 22nd…I really do not know what the date is anymore…it was January 6th).   

 

For the creation of Living Ground, Suelo Vivo, to happen, we need to rise and educate POD leaders.   That was the intention of the presentation.     There are nine PODS each having equal worth to the bigger whole.    All PODS are formed on the foundation of the “good guy” microbes.  Whether it be the compost makers, testers (lab techs), growers, artists, gourmet market operators, distillery creators (essential oils)  they all connect to the infusion and presence of the microbes.   We are mearly the creative force in the “soil food web” rising its’ importance (foundational) so all thrive and benefit.

For more details on the POD descriptions (listed below), view the POD CREATION SHEET

 I also encourage everyone and all interested parties to connect on the Living Ground Telegram Channel

The Operations Microbe goal is rise up and inspire 2 POD leaders for each section (preferably one local and one gringo) who will be fully trained and mentored in the creation process.   The leaders will be linked together to ensure all teams are working with integrity, empowerment and inspiration.   Each leader will be trained in Tools and Art of Sacred Commerce.    All training will be offered freely in exchange of the commitment to make this happen.    

It is my commitment to offer all training (whether in the operations and understanding of the microbes, soil food web or sacred commerce) to all those who show up.   If the team member chooses not to continue with the creation, there will be an agreement made that training costs will be reimbursed.    There really does need to be a common vision and a selfless commitment towards this creation.   My effort will be given and shared only for those who really do want to put this dream into action.   

For those who attended the workshop on January 6th and signed up for the PODS, you have been added to the mailing and communication lists.   If you are interested in a POD after watching the presentation video, please contact me EMAIL

mailto:info@livingground.art

We are now preparing to raise the necessary funds for “Operation Microbe” set-up.   Here are the PODS…

Full Financial Requirements for “Operation Microbe Creators”  

BREAK DOWN OF THE PODS

Compost Makers ~ Microbe Makers Build Microbe Compost, Teas & Extracts.
Two Team Leaders (Gringo/Local)
Lab Techs ~ Microbe Testers Laboratory Soil Testing of the Microbes
Two Team Leaders (Gringo/Local)
Consultancy Team
Microbe Infusers
Off Site Consultancy to regenerate lands, farms and gardens. .
Two Team Leaders (Gring/Local) and a team of compost workers.
Must be fully trained in understanding the soil tests, compost and applications to regenerate land (including removal of toxins, chemicals and toxins)
Distiller One Team Leader with team
Creation of pure essential oils and operations of the stills. Bottlings and labeling
Onsite Gardener and Grower
Microbe Planters
On site part time
Potting of plants and seeds for sale
TiendaOperation ~ Microbe Sales Two Team Members (Gringo and Local)
Operations of the Microbe Market that will showcase Microbe products and produce.
Tea/Tapa Bar and making of food and offerings.
Off Site Microbe Artists Microbe Creatives
Product makers but the base must be all products are connected to the microbes
Off Site Microbe Growers Produce to sell in the Tienda/Market or used for Essential Oil making

As above, so below!   Up, up and away!

Soil. It’s our greatest treasure.

It can take hundreds of years and many natural processes to make even a centimetre of soil. The mechanical and chemical weathering of rock makes up around half of any soil’s composition, with around 5% supplied by organic material, and the rest made up by air and water.

Put another way, soil is a complicated mix of both the non-organic, abiotic components- minerals, water and air, and the organic biotic components- bacteria, archaea, fungi, plants and invertebrates that live and die within it.

In addition, and bound together with any basic discussion about soil, is the reality of a living soil, the soil food web and soil biodiversity. Soil is a complex, sustainable and dynamic ecosystem, sustained through the complicated interaction of countless soil fauna like worms, woodlice, springtails, nematodes and mites, together with fungi and bacteria.

“Despite all our achievements, we owe our existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains.”

However, within a few generations, we have seen the world’s soils rapidly and increasingly degrade, losing nutrients, carbon and fertility, turning saline or actually blowing away. Crops are losing yield and not responding to NPK fertilisers. Fields and farms are being abandoned across much of the world, forcing even more poverty, suffering and human migration. This degrading is mostly human-driven, due to bad farming practices, pollution, acidification, compaction, deforestation and climate change across the world. It’s a sobering and worrying time. Soil biodiversity is dying, with soil fauna like springtails and soil mites reducing to almost zero. Worms are disappearing, fungal activity ceasing.

Soil scientists and farmers are finally being listened to.   People are learning and gaining more knowledge and understanding.  Research is now well funded and positive changes are being discussed at a governmental level and implemented on a regional and local level. Sustaining, improving and increasing soils is a lengthy and time consuming process, but no dig, microbe compost making and regenerative agriculture are showing great results. Feeding the soil rather than the plant has become a well known mantra amongst gardeners and organic growers. The ship may be sinking, but all is not lost.

Whoever you are and whoever you will become, tread lightly on the earth.”

Is your favourite fruit about to go extinct? 

The deadly disease pathogen Fusarium wilt TR4 (previously referred to as Panama Disease) has been wreaking havoc and ravaging the $25 billion global banana industry – with infected plantations experiencing 100% loss and being quarantined for decades.  Colombia has already declared a National State of Emergency, but it may be too late.  A flurry of apocalyptic media accounts have followed, revealing a race to save bananas from extinction after the disease has left a trail of scorched banana plantations in its wake.

The world’s most destructive banana disease is spreading, and there are currently no chemicals available to kill the disease.   This might be a blessing in disguise as it is highly likely that chemical use has actualy contributed to this problem in the first place.   

In August 2021, the Ecuadorian Government has raised the banana disease Fusarium wilt TR4 to pandemic level.  “Ecuador’s message to the global banana community is clear: Fusarium is not just a pest; it is a lethal pandemic for bananas that currently has no solution and that threatens one of the most important industries for the Ecuadorian economy.”

Fusarium wilt is a common fungal disease that attacks many types of herbaceous plants, including banana trees. Also known as Panama disease, fusarium wilt of banana is difficult to control and severe infections are often deadly. The disease has decimated crops and has threatened an estimated 80 percent of the world’s banana crop. Read on to learn more about banana fusarium wilt disease, including management and control. Banana Fusarium Wilt Symptoms Fusarium is a soil-borne fungus that enters the banana plant through the roots. As the disease progresses upward through the plant, it clogs the vessels and blocks the flow of water and nutrients. The first visible banana fusarium wilt symptoms are stunted growth, leaf distortion, and yellowing, and wilt along the edges of mature, lower leaves. The leaves gradually collapse and droop from the plant, eventually drying up completely.   A good article https://draxe.com/health/banana-fungus/ 

The good news is there probably is a natural organic solution, simply utilizing the natural defense mechanism of microbes.    

https://sfamjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1365-2672.2006.03083.x 

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2019.00616/full

Fusarium Wilt is a problem in the soil…a bad guy is taking over!    Raise the good guys and let them do their magic!

Bananas As We Know Them Are Doomed VICE News

Disease Is Ravaging the $25 Billion Banana Industry Bloomberg

Why The World’s Most Popular Banana May Go Extinct Business Insider

The world’s bananas are in trouble BBC World Service

Why The Banana Business Of Chiquita And Dole Is At Risk CNBC

DONATE TO HELP MAKE THE CHANGE

 

OUR MISSION

Land degradation is a collective threat for everyone.    It is vitally important we make a transition to regenerate our soils which as a primary basis of all life and health.   THis is a paradigm shift in our way of thinking and doing.    Our mission is to both educate and create bio-complete soils and spread this gold for our collective future.    It is about changing our approach (even the organic approach) and entering a new paradigm shift.   It is about empowering everyone to thrive, win and benefit.  It is about creating compost that rejuvenates soils, educating everyone into this knowledge and creating a system where everyone wins.

The Plan

* Establish Microbe Compost Creation and Microscope Laboratory
* Consult, Educate and Empower both locals and all food growers.
* Transform neighborhoods here and in Ecuador
* Protect sacred lands and WATER-SHEDS and offering them a solution towards the transformation
* Grow food that is truly nutrient rich and which becomes our medicine.
* Create a reproducible model of sustainability to share our knowledge.

The concept:   Beneficial organisms convert and create life, nutrients, energy, health and bountiful ecosystems.    Our mission is create rich compost, to teach and educate, assist, convert and inspire conversion to regenerative cultivation This creates abundance for everyone.  .  Let’s heal the living world together.

We have a natural way forward for Sustainable Agriculture and Human Health blending science and art.
REGENERATIVE ORGANIC stewardship
It’s Time! It’s Necessary!

 

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THE COMPOST SQUAD  

We are a little team whose backgrounds and heritage merges from all over the world (England, Canada, USA, Ecuador).    We come together in this project to make a difference, help our community and expand out into the farms of lands of Ecuador.   Our backgrounds are diverse but we all love the land and nature.   Our common dream is to change the world for our sakes and the sake the generations to come

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Bank Account (only available for Ecuador Residence)

 

 

Introduction to Mushrooms and Mycology  by Danny Miller, education@psms.org

Hunting for mushrooms can be a very rewarding hobby, not just for edibles but for the wide array of colours, shapes and odors that they come in. You might find mushrooms that are bright red, purple, green or almost any colour of the rainbow. They might smell of sweet almonds, black licorice, grape bubble gum or garlic. Almost immediately after beginning to mushroom hunt I was finding fascinating species very easily and wondering “Am I just lucky today or have these always been here and I just haven’t noticed?” This is a common story. The woods are full of the most amazing things that are getting overlooked all the time because we’re so caught up in our own little world. All it takes is a moment to look around to start discovering and being inspired by the fascinating world of fungi.

 

 

I regret I cannot demonstrate the odors on this web page.

Learning to Identify

People ask me all the time how to quickly tell which mushroom is which. All of the books describe how important it is to spend a few hours getting a spore print of a gilled mushroom, and carefully comparing dozens of different characters to make sure they all match your mushroom before coming to any conclusions. You might spend all day keying out a mushroom and coming to a tentative conclusion, and then go to hand it to an experienced identifier and from across the room they will tell you what it is. How did they do that? They didn’t have any time to examine the mushroom and determine if the cap was scaly or only fibrillose or if the stem was pruinose or not, and they certainly didn’t take a spore print. This is because the experienced identifier has learned to recognize the mushroom as you learn to recognize your friends and family. When cousin Steve walks up to you, you don’t think “Ah, mid-length black hair, glasses and freckles, age range 40-49, that’s cousin Steve”. You have synthesized everything in your mind about Steve that makes Steve Steve to the point where you can just recognize him. This will eventually happen to you for certain mushrooms. You can probably already identify a store bought Safeway brown button mushroom without thinking about it too much. That does not mean that you shouldn’t take the time to make spore prints and carefully go through mushroom keys. You cannot learn to recognize a mushroom by only reading about it, you have to play with it and look at it carefully while answering questions about it to really get to know it. Just like you didn’t really get to know cousin Steve by looking at his picture in the family album, you got to know him because he came to visit every year for the holidays. So when you ask the identifier how they could tell what the mushroom was, and they say “I’m not sure, it’s hard to explain”, they are not being mean. It’s just as if somebody asked you to describe how to recognize cousin Steve because they need to pick him up at the airport – it would be hard for you to describe Steve in a way that would allow somebody else to pick him out of a crowd.

One of the most important things a mushroom book or website can do is help you tell mushrooms apart from each other. A technical monograph will describe many mushrooms in extreme detail, but that’s not enough. You might have to read several pages of notes on two species and take notice yourself about what the differences are (much might be few). The next step is to realize which of those differences are important and which aren’t. The best criteria are those which are easily noticeable and reliably different between the two mushrooms. I think the most useful part of a guide book is the section that talks about the mushroom and its close lookalikes, like the “Comments” section in Mushrooms Demystified or the “Notes” and “Similar” sections of the MatchMaker program. That is what I have tried to do on these pages – focus on the unique characters of each mushroom that allow you to most quickly tell them apart, and I have placed photos of all the similar species side by side for easy comparison, unlike the typical guide book which often lists them in alphabetical order.

Ecology and Habitat

Something that is very important to take note of if you are going to try and identify a mushroom is… did the mushroom sprout out of the ground, or is it growing out of a piece of wood? There are two main ways that mushrooms get nutrition and figuring that out can be an important part of identifying it.

First of all we have to talk about what a mushroom really is. Fungi are organisms that are different from both plants and animals, although we used to think they were a kind of plant (because they are attached to the ground and can’t wander around freely). But it turns out that genetically, fungi are closer to animals than they are to plants – we both have chitin in our cell walls, for instance. The actual fungus grows as a network of threads called mycelium that permeate the ground and can grow for miles, sort of like the roots of a plant but smaller than the width of a human hair. When conditions are right, and the fungus feels it has a good chance at reproducing, it will expend the energy to grow a mushroom (like a fruit or a flower that a plant grows). Because of the vast difference in size between the invisible threads of the fungus itself and its fruit, the mushroom, it almost seems analogous to a tree growing an apple that is the size of the Empire State Building. Unlike plants that sprout flowers and fruit like clockwork every year, not all fungi will grow mushrooms every year.  Since the organism is invisibly tiny, you can imagine that it takes a LOT of energy to create a “fruit” that is orders of magnitude more massive than itself, so they are fussy about when they fruit. Nobody understands fully what triggers them. Some mushrooms are only seen to sprout once every ten or twenty years, while others come up reliably several times a year. It has something to do with the temperature and humidity and soil acidity being ideal, but “ideal” is different for different fungi. So you might say that while the millions of species of plants and animals all look different, and you can tell them apart fairly easily, the millions of species of fungi all look almost identical to the naked eye (invisibly small thread networks) but their fruits all look different. So when we study mushrooms, we are studying the different fruiting bodies of different fungi, not the fungus itself. Many fungi never make fruiting bodies big enough to see very well. For instance, the mold Penicillin is just a thin layer of fuzz, and some species are much smaller than that. Most mushroom clubs, mushroom books and mushroom pages like this one are mostly concerned with those fungi that make large fruiting bodies that you are likely to notice (and care about). But there are many more thousands of closely related species that go mostly unnoticed because no part of them ever gets big enough to get your attention.

You will see tiny mushrooms almost all year round (e.g. Mycena) but the larger, fleshier fruit bodies mostly fruit during certain times of the year because they take a lot more energy to produce and perhaps the fungus is being fussier about when to sprout, wanting to make sure the conditions are right.

Some mushrooms are mycorrhizal, meaning that they live in a symbiotic relationship with trees and other plants. Their mycelium actually grows in with the network of tree roots. Remember back in grade school when you learned that plants make their own food using the chlorophyll that makes them green to turn sunlight into sugar? Well, that’s not the whole story. If the tree only ate sugar it would be as unhealthy as you or I living on an all candy diet. It turns out the mushroom’s thin mycelium are very good at getting vitamins and minerals out of the soil, but plant roots are not. So the mushroom takes some of the sugar made by the tree and in return it gives the tree vitamins and minerals and everybody lives a happy life eating a balanced diet. They did an experiment taking the fungi away from some pine saplings, and they got very sickly! Mycorrhizal mushrooms will be mostly found growing out of the ground, although they have been known to have their mycelium grow up and around a log and then grow the mushroom right out of the log, so you can be fooled.

Other mushrooms are saprophytic, meaning they eat and decay dead plant matter like tree trunks, branches, needles and leaves. So not only are mushrooms necessary for the health of trees but if it weren’t for mushrooms, fallen plant debris would not rot. Every forest would have duff so deep you wouldn’t be able to walk through it because you would sink in over your head. Some mushrooms eat the cellulose in the plants (the white squishy part) leaving the brittle brown lignin behind. These are called brown rot fungi. More difficult to do is to digest the lignin and mushrooms are some of the only organisms to evolve enzymes to be able to digest lignin (you cannot – it’s one of many reasons that wood is not considered food). These leave the white squishy cellulose behind, and are called white rot fungi. Many logs will have many different mushrooms living in them, some eating the cellulose and some eating the lignin. Sometimes you can find a piece of a rotted log that is mostly white and squishy or brown and brittle and you can see which type of fungus predominates. One study of a single log in the forest that has been going on for over 20 years has found over 200 mushrooms growing out of it so far… that’s how many different species are living there. But most astonishingly, new ones are still being discovered every year. Saprophytic mushrooms often grow right out of the piece of wood that they are eating, and can be recognized that way, but some saprophytic mushrooms just live off of the nutrients in the soil and grow up in the grass, miles away from the nearest shrub or tree. However, if there are trees nearby, there is no way to tell for sure if your mushroom sprouting out of the ground is a saprophytic or mycorrhizal mushroom.

Saprophytic mushrooms can be mass produced easily and cheaply. They grow on piles of dead things, so if get yourself a pile of dead things and sprinkle spores on it you’ll grow mushrooms. But mycorrhizal mushrooms? They need to be attached to living, sometimes old growth trees, so you can’t grow them in captivity! They have to be hunted in the wild, and that’s why they are so expensive. The health food store is not trying to rip you off because they know you love morels so much more than you love the button mushroom…. it’s because the button mushroom is saprophytic and the morel is mycorrhizal. (Well, mostly, except for the one that popped up mysteriously in your planter that one time, but that’s another story.) Every morel that you see in the store had to be found by somebody walking through the forest. And truffles grow underground, so they’re even harder to find, so the price is going to be that much higher.

    More on Spore Prints

The spores don’t just fall off of the mushroom, they are forcibly ejected! The mushroom wants its spores to be flung as far away as possible to spread its “seed”, so it actually launches the spores, something which will only happen when the spores are mature and ready (and their proper colour) and if the mushroom is moist enough. If your attempt to make a spore print doesn’t work it’s not that you did it wrong. It’s that the mushroom is too young (so the spores weren’t ready) or the mushroom was too old (and too dry).

Occasionally mushrooms like some Agaricus have an intermediate spore colour – the spores go from clear to pink to dark chocolate as they age. Looking at a mushroom can fool you as to the spore colour. You have to take a spore print! You might see white gills because there are no coloured spores there yet (but if you left the mushroom in the ground and watched it for a day the gills would later turn brown with spores). You might see pink gills on an Agaricus but the spores have not fully matured yet into the proper dark chocolate colour. But you can’t be fooled by a spore print. Those fake pink spores (or any young spore not fully grown and not the proper colour) will NOT fall off onto the paper! So if it is ejected onto the paper, you have a “real” spore colour. It is also most reliable to measure spores under a microscope from a spore print, not from examining a piece of tissue (especially true of Ascos) because you won’t have any small young spores confusing you and giving the wrong measurements! Squishing a piece of tissue onto a slide may actually break off spores that are not yet their full size and colour and were not yet separated from the mushroom until you came along and crushed it.

    Taxonomy

As you saw in the instructions, if two mushrooms are in the same genus it’s because they are very closely related. If they are in different genera, but they are in the same family, they are somewhat related. If they are in different classes, you know that they are only distantly related. And if they are in different phyla, you know they are just about as different as any two mushrooms can be. But, as I said, there are only 6 levels of fungi in this classification system. For instance, Hygrocybe and Hygrophorus and Chrysomphalina are all genera in the Hygrophoraceae family. Hygrocybe and Hygrophorus are more closely related to each other (I think), but there’s no way for you to know that. You would need to add a new level, a sub-family (or a super-genus, not to be confused with Wile E. Coyote Super-Genius) to the tree to show that relationship. People have created many different sub-levels to show more detail, but it’s never going to be perfect until you have an infinite number of levels, which just isn’t practical. So this system, like any man-made system, is just a flawed attempt to show at least some of the relationships between mushrooms. You need a picture of a full phylogenetic tree to show the exact relationships between all the mushrooms, but we won’t get into that here.

Another interesting philosophical argument is: What is a species? OK, so you go through the keys and you find the mushroom you have, and you are able to put a name on it. Is that the mushroom species that you have? Maybe not. The field of mycology started out in Europe, where people went around and named all of the mushrooms they found. Then later, in North America, people started going around looking at all the mushrooms here, first of all along the east coast. They noticed that some mushrooms looked the same as the ones in Europe and some were different, so they used the European names for the ones that looked the same over here and made up new names for the new ones. Then they started looking on the west coast and they noticed that some were the same as in Europe, some were the same as on the east coast and some were new.  Except that is not necessarily true. The Amanita muscaria out west sure looks like the same one found in Europe for thousands of years, but a closer analysis shows that it just might be genetically different enough to perhaps be a different species. Some mycologists want to call it “Amanita amerimuscaria”. Once a mushroom migrates over here and gets isolated from its original population it will start to evolve and drift from the original European mushroom. Eventually there is enough difference that it becomes a new species. And there may be a lot of changes, but to the human eye it still looks the same, so sometimes you can’t actually tell which species you have without doing DNA analysis. But that’s not the final word either. No two mushrooms are alike, and no two people are alike. How far apart do two mushrooms have to be before they are considered a different species?  Believe it or not, there is no generally accepted answer to that question. Some people think that if two organisms can mate with each other and produce viable offspring (that themselves are capable of reproducing) then they are the same species, and if they can’t, then they are not. That is called a “biological species”. However, sometimes it is not possible to test this. Some people say “if the DNA is more than 1% different, let’s call it a different species” but that is arbitrary. Some people say “if we find a whole bunch of mushrooms very much like each other and a second bunch of mushrooms all like each other, but we can’t find any mushrooms that are in between, let’s call them two different species.” But then what happens when you later find a mushroom that’s right in between? You have to change your mind and say “I guess they weren’t separate species after all”. This has happened.

So the current state of affairs is that the DNA work is starting to be done to see if the thousands of mushrooms named in Europe are really the same thing over here. Somebody is going to make a judgment call (there are no right or wrong answers) and if the mushroom is “different enough” they will give the North American mushroom a different name and say that it is a different mushroom, even though to humans, they look the same. For instance, Helvella lacunosa, the fluted elfin saddle just got a new name here in the PNW – Helvella vespertina. It looks the same in Europe as it does here (although some people argue there are tiny differences) but if you find it in Europe you are supposed to call it “Helvella lacunosa” and if you find it in Seattle you are supposed to call it “Helvella vespertina”. Its DNA is different over here. Different enough that somebody thought it deserved a different name. Perhaps the only objective way to answer these questions is to choose the definition of “biological species”, but it takes a long time to do those studies, much longer than it takes to sequence some DNA, so that work is not going to be done anytime soon. Nor can everybody agree that that is how it should be done.

To make things official, every mushroom is supposed to have a “type”, the first mushroom found like it, which you are supposed to keep in a museum. You can say with absolute certainty that the first Helvella lacunosa found in 1783 in Europe is properly called Helvella lacunosa. But what about the millions of other mushrooms just like it that have been found since? Are they also Helvella lacunosa? Now you understand that some people would say yes and some people would say no. The problem is, we didn’t save the original specimens until recently, so there is no original “type” for Helvella lacunosa and many other common mushrooms first named long ago (we didn’t start saving them until more recently, and even if we did save them they’re so old now that you can’t always extract DNA). So you will never be able to prove it one way or another. For all such mushrooms somebody has to go back to the general area where the original one was found, find something as close to it as they possibly can, and declare that one the new “type” (and then remember to save it this time.)

Over the years, as we try and figure out which mushrooms are related to each other, we’ve gotten better and better at figuring that out and we have changed the names of the mushrooms many times to try and express that. Most mushrooms have many synonyms, alternative Latin names you could use for the mushroom, and not everybody agrees on which name is the right one. Some have dozens of possible names! So you will see the same mushroom on these pages called something different by a different book or a different person. The right name will continue to be argued over until we can say with certainty which other mushrooms it is related to and also say with certainty who named it first and therefore has priority.

Many of the guidebooks you will find, such as Mushrooms Demystified, were written a long time ago and DNA studies have shown that mushrooms are not related to each other in the ways we used to think. If David were to rewrite that book now, the chapters would be organized differently (and he just might.) The reason a couple of the chapters are so big is that only the most distinctive mushrooms got their own family (or chapter) back in the day, and everything left over was placed in a miscellaneous family (sometimes called the garbage family). It took years of microscopic and molecular study to figure out the differences between these leftover mushrooms and to create families where each mushroom can rightfully belong. And this work is still ongoing! It will be years before we have the answers. Mushrooms are being renamed and moved around the tree of life every month! We live in interesting times, for it may be true that sooner than we think these questions will be answered once and for all and so we can dream that one day our children will not have to live in a world where mushroom names are being changed all the time.

Now I bet there is one question going through many people’s minds right now… “Who cares?!?”.  As humans we love to categorize things, but the level of detail we choose to categorize things to should depend on whether or not declaring two mushrooms the same or different is actually useful somehow. Perhaps it is your job to trace how mushrooms have evolved and study how long it takes an organism to develop significant differences after being introduced to an isolated island. Then you absolutely want to try and figure all of this out. Is one species going extinct but a closely related species thriving and you are trying to figure out what changes are happening in the environment and how it might affect us? Then you also care. But if you just want to learn to recognize and enjoy the beautiful mushrooms around you, maybe you are completely content knowing that you have narrowed the identity of one down to a closely related group of species. What if you just want to eat it? You usually won’t care, but it turns out that the popular edible mushroom Macrolepiota rachodes turned out to be three different species, and the popular honey mushroom Armillaria mellea turned out to be nine different species all hiding in a species complex that looked almost identical. They differ by very little, except that some people are allergic to some of them (and get sick eating them) but not others. Now that somebody did the work of sorting out the minute differences that make up the different species (work which to some I’m sure seemed pointless), these people can figure out reliably which ones they can eat!

    Convergent Evolution

One very interesting thing we learned as we started to delve into the true relationships of the mushrooms is that there were some big surprises of mushrooms that looked alike but turned out to be completely unrelated as well as mushrooms that couldn’t look more different that turned out to be closely related. For instance, many puffballs and the little bird’s nest fungi turned out to be related to the store bought Agaricus mushroom. Yet Russula and Lactarius, although looking for all the world like every other gilled mushroom, are not closely related to any other gilled mushroom at all. It turns out that there are only so many ways you can look to be successful in life (if you’re a mushroom). You need to maximize the surface area to volume ratio of your spore-bearing hymenium, which simply means that you need to make as many spores as possible if you hope to reproduce.  While more “primitive” mushrooms only make spores on the surface of a piece of wood, eventually more “clever” mushrooms evolved to produce a wrinkled surface instead of a flat surface, in order to have more room to make more spores in and around each of the folds. Eventually, gills evolved, where the face of each gill is coated in spores, much like the pages of a book, producing thousands of times more spores than simply coating a flat surface would. Another strategy is to grow pores, like the boletes and polypores do. They evolved tubes (like a bundle of straws you hold in your hand) where the inside of each tube is coated with millions of spores. A third strategy is to develop spines (also called teeth), kind of like inside-out pores where the surface of each spine can be coated in many, many spores. These three shapes are the most successful for reproducing and they have evolved independently over and over again, seemingly by coincidence, so that we now have mushrooms that look identical but are millions of years apart in evolution. Except now we understand that it isn’t really coincidence – when you get into a harsh environment and are pressured to evolve more spores or go extinct, you find a way to evolve into one of those three shapes. This is called convergent evolution.

The shapes of Gastroid and Truffle-like fungi especially have evolved independently many, many times, as explained on the truffle page.

So that begs the question, what is a gilled mushroom? The answer used to be easy – anything with gills. But as we started to make up the mushroom family tree to accurately represent their relationships to each other we now have mushrooms with gills all over the tree and there is no longer just one branch of the tree with gills.  You might choose to define a gilled mushroom as everything related to the store button mushroom Agaricus (technically the Order Agaricales) which was the first mushroom ever named and therefore gets to be the official gilled mushroom. But this means that some mushrooms with gills (like some polypores and Russulas) are not gilled mushrooms, but puffballs and bird’s nests are gilled mushrooms. You can see why this might be controversial.

    Edibility

Edibility is another controversial subject. Mushrooms are very hard to identify and at first, you are not going to get the identity of most mushrooms correct when you use these pages (or any other book or key). And if you eat the mushroom, you might kill yourself. Identifying correctly is very hard to do and can only be done after getting a lot of hands-on experience with a trained teacher. There are many things that can go wrong

  • There are over 5,000 mushrooms in the PNW and most books only list a few hundred, so your mushroom is probably not even in your book.
  • Different mushrooms can look almost identical and it takes a trained eye to spot the differences.
  • Identifying is hard enough in person – via a photograph it’s even harder still.
  • Every key and book I know has mistakes in it, including this one, sometimes giving you the wrong information and sometimes having the wrong photograph for a certain species.
  • I am always finding mushrooms that grew under odd circumstances and look nothing like they normally do, often looking much like a different mushroom.
  • Mushrooms change a lot as they age, and a photograph can only show one at one point in its life cycle.
  • Where you live, there may be deadly poisonous mushrooms that don’t grow elsewhere and look like edible mushrooms where your guidebook was written, so the guidebook might not warn you about them.
  • Many people are allergic to mushrooms and get sick eating things that others can eat perfectly well. So always try only a small piece of a new confirmed edible species and only eat more of it if you don’t feel sick after an hour or so.

I’m not trying to discourage you from learning. With enough practice you can learn to identify hundreds of different mushrooms from blurry photographs, but it takes years. Go ahead and try and identify all the mushrooms you find, and use the result as the starting point for learning more about that species and how to identify it, but just in case you’re wrong, don’t eat it.

There are a lot of common “rules” floating about that say things like “Do not eat a bolete that turns blue wherever it is touched”, or “poisonous mushrooms are white or have red pores” but none of these rules are true. A rule like this comes about because somebody discovers a poisonous mushroom that turns blue, or is white, or has red pores, so they make a rule saying not to eat mushrooms that have that property. But the truth is, there are probably 99 edible mushrooms that are white or turn blue for every one that is poisonous, so it’s not a very good rule. You might think that at least it’s a good “better safe than sorry” rule, except that there are deadly poisonous mushrooms that don’t look like any of the mushrooms in any of the rules, so you can needlessly avoid hundreds of good edible species and only eat a mushroom that doesn’t follow any of the “bad” rules, and you might still die. So much for rules.

OK, this is the moment you’ve all been waiting for. I am about to tell you the real way to tell if a mushroom is edible or not… are you ready? Here goes… you eat it and then see what happens to you.

Yes, here we are well into the 21st century, and there is still no better way. There may be hundreds of different toxins in different mushrooms, and we don’t even know what they are, so we can’t make a test for them. Sure, whenever a mushroom kills somebody it gets funding, and we learn why. So there is a test for amatoxin, the deadly poison in Amanita phalloides and other mushrooms, but for the vast majority of poisons out there there is no test. So every time you read in a guidebook “edible, edible, poisonous, edible” it’s because some brave person long ago ate them and passed them around to a few of their equally brave (or naively trusting) friends, and wrote down which ones made them sick, and how sick they got. Then, as mushrooms started killing people, we found fewer brave volunteers to try all the unknown and newly discovered mushrooms, which is why in more recent guidebooks describing more recently discovered mushrooms, you’ll see a whole lot of “unknown, don’t know, unknown, no idea”.

I think it is true to say that there are far fewer poisonous mushrooms than we think. If anybody got scared or felt weird when eating a mushroom, nobody else would be brave enough to try it, so a lot of the mushrooms received bad reputations for no good reason. Many “poisonings” were allergic reactions that you or I might not have if we ate it. And if the first person ate it and was fine but the second person ate it and got sick, we wrote “edible, but use caution as some people can’t tolerate it”. But if the first person got sick and the second person was fine we wrote “poisonous but not to everybody”. Same edibility. But it is still true that some mushrooms can kill you, so no matter how few of them are actually poisonous, don’t eat something you can’t ID with 100% accuracy, because you might get unlucky.

Don’t trust what somebody else says unless you personally know their credentials. All the time I see people on the internet post pictures and ask what a mushroom is, and I see other people respond naming it as a species that is edible, and they are wrong. Sometimes they even admit they’re only guessing because they’re only trying to learn themselves and hoping that somebody will tell them if they are right or wrong. They don’t expect the other person to eat it based on their guess. But some people seem to trust a stranger on the internet whom they have never met with their life, and they will eat it. Remember, that is what you are doing, trusting that person whom you’ve never met with your life.

If you hang around with an identifier long enough you’ll notice that they are always finding strange mushrooms in the woods and saying “Hmm, I wonder what that is?” and popping them in their mouth. What is going on? Are they trying to kill themselves? Well, some mushrooms that look alike only differ by taste, so you have to taste them to find out what mushroom you have. As long as you spit them out, barring bacteria and environmental toxins, you’re probably OK. The poisons are long chain proteins usually too large to be absorbed through the mucous membrane of the roof of your mouth – you would have to actually swallow a piece to get poisoned. You might not want to go around chewing the deadly Amanita just on principle. Mycologists have a pretty good idea that their mushroom is not deadly poisonous before they risk a taste, but my point is that you should not be afraid to touch a mushroom. And there is certainly no reason to avert your children’s eyes away from the forest for fear that they see a poison mushroom and it hurt them.

So in summary, if you would like to start eating wild mushrooms, my advice to you is to find an expert who can teach you, in person, just a few of your favourite edibles and their poisonous lookalikes, and then practice with that person until they are confident that you can do it on your own. Since there are no general rules to identify edible mushrooms, you will have to start with a small number of species, non-gilled if you want to be safest (since they are easier to identify and fewer of them are poisonous), and learn all the lookalikes from a real person. Don’t try to do it from any book or publication.

Microscopy

If you are just starting out, you are probably not yet thinking of getting a microscope to look at mushrooms for identification, but eventually you will need to. A macroscopic key can only get you so far. You might notice a number of species are described very similarly on these pages, and are wondering how you can learn to tell them apart. The answer is that you probably can’t without a microscope and more information on what to look for. Subtle differences are not usually reliable, so trying to learn to identify lookalike species by studying their tiny differences is misguided – it really might be either one.

Here is some advice on how to get started with a microscope, when you’re ready. Books will tell you many, many things you can look for under the scope to identify your mushroom, but they won’t tell you how difficult they are to find. You can see most everything you need to see with a good 400 power system. Don’t feel you need to spend the extra money right away for a 1000 power oil lens. You can see the shape and size of spores and measure them to within a micron or two. Don’t expect at first to be able to tell the difference between species whose spore sizes differ by less than that. Most of the time, you will see if the spores are smooth or have some kind of warts, but not always. Telling Basidiomycota from Ascomycota is very easy to do. So is finding odd shaped cystidia.

However, if you are told to look for clamp connections or tell the difference between monomitic and dimitic or trimitic hyphae, do not expect to be able to do that without a very good quality 1000 power lens and a whole lot of practice and patience. The same goes for trying to find the structure of the cap and gills. If you know what you can realistically find as a beginner, you will save yourself from getting frustrated and impatient.

    Mycology

I’d love to be able to answer all of your questions, but the unfortunate fact is that there is so much about mushrooms that we just don’t know. Mycology does not get a lot of funding, and there are not a lot of people working in the field compared to botany, mammalogy and, well, just about every other part of biology except for slime molds. (Even mycologists feel sorry for slime molds in the Kingdom Protista and sometimes study them out of pity). There is just so much we don’t know and are not likely to learn anytime soon, which is unfortunate considering that everything we do know is telling us how crucial fungi are to every part of the life cycle on this planet. The mystery is one reason we find them so fascinating and amateur enthusiasts from mushroom clubs are often able to help professional mycologists in many ways. Not only are they fun to study, but it’s great to know that what you do can make a difference! The field needs all of the assistance it can get.

Don’t feel bad if you have trouble matching a mushroom you find to the pictures on these pages. Individual mushrooms of a species can vary tremendously. Imagine you are an alien that has come to Earth and you say “take me to your leader” so they bring you to President Obama. Now you’re wondering which species he is, so you consult your guidebook to creatures of the Milky Way galaxy, and the picture they have under “human” is a photo of Prince William’s new baby. You would go back to your home planet and swear up and down that you couldn’t possibly have spoken to a human. Read and become familiar with as many references as you can, and make sure to note the variety each individual can demonstrate every time you find a mushroom, and don’t give up.

Analysis of Candida Albicans as a Fungus
[Taken from writings of Dr. Simoncini but reduced to less medical and more commonly understood words.]

Candida Albicans is a type of fungus.

Fungi possess a property that is strange when compared to all other micro-organisms: the ability to have a basic microscopic structure (the fiber-like hypha) with a simultaneous tendency to grow to remarkable dimensions (up to several kilograms), keeping unchanged the capacity to adapt and reproduce.

From this point of view, therefore, fungi cannot be considered true organisms, but unique cellular parts with the behavior of an organism.

Fungi, during their life cycle, depend on other living beings, which must be exploited in different degrees for their feeding. The simple carbohydrates (sugars) needed by fungi include monosaccarides (glucose, fructose, and mannose). The fungi get these sugars from their hosts by feeding on their oragnic waste, and by directly attacking the host for nourishment.

Fungi show a great variety of reproductive manifestations (sexual, asexual, gemmation; these manifestations can often be observed simultaneously) in order to create spores.

The hyphas somewhat beak-shaped fiber structures allow their penetration of the host tissues.

The production of spores can be so abundant as to always include tens, hundreds, and even thousands of millions of them.

Spores have an immense resistance to external aggression, for they are capable of staying dormant in adverse conditions for many years, while maintaining their regenerative potential.

The shape of the fungus is never defined, for it is imposed by the environment in which the fungus develops.

The partial or total substitution of nourishing substances causes frequent mutations in fungi, and this is further proof of their high adaptability.

When the nutritional conditions are precarious many fungi join with nearby fungi which allows them to explore the available tissue more easily, using more complete physiological processes. This property, which substitutes co-operation for competition, makes them distinct from any other microorganism, and for this reason Buller calls them social organisms.

When a fungus cell gets old or becomes damaged (i.e. by a toxic substance or by a drug) many fungi, whose intercellular dividing walls are provided with a pore, react by transfering the nucleus and cytoplasm of the damaged cell into a healthy one, thus conserving unaltered all their biological potential.

The phenomena regulating the development of hyphas is independent of the regulating action and behaviour of the rest of the colony.

Fungi are capable of implementing an infinite number of modifications to their own metabolism in order to overcome the defense mechanism of the host. These modifications are implemented through plasmatic and biochemical actions as well as by a size increase and reproduction of the cells that have been attacked.

Fungi are so aggressive as to attack not only plants, animal tissue, food supplies and other fungi, but even protozoa, amoebas and nematodes.

Fungi hunt nematodes, for example, with peculiar hyphal modifications that constitute real mycelial fiber criss-cross, viscose, or ring traps that achieve the immobilization of the worms. In some cases, the aggressive power of fungi is so great as to allow it, with only a cellular ring made up of three units, to tighten in its grip, capture and kill its prey in a short time notwithstanding the prey’s desperate struggling.

From the short notations above, therefore, it seems fair to dedicate a greater attention to the world of fungi, especially considering the fact that biologists and microbiologists constantly highlight large deficiencies and voids in all their descriptions and interpretations of the fungi’s shape, physiology and reproduction.

The fungus is the most powerful and the most organized micro-organism known.

The greatest disease of mankind may therefore hide within the small cluster of pathogenic fungi, and may be after all be located with just some simple deductions able to close the circle and provide the solution.

Therefore an exceptionally high and diversified pathogenic potentiality exists in this fungal fiber of just a few microns in size, which, even though it cannot be traced with present experimental instruments, cannot be neglected from the clinical point of view. Certainly, its present disease classification cannot be satisfactory, because if we do not keep the possibly endless parasitic configurations in mind, that classification is too simplistic and constraining.

We therefore have to hypothesize that Candida, in the moment it is attacked by the immune system of the host or by a conventional antifungal treatment, does not react in the usual, predicted way, but defends itself by transforming itself into ever-smaller and non-differentiated elements that maintain their prolific reproductiveness intact to the point of hiding their presence both to the host organism and to possible diagnostic investigations.

The Candida’s behavior may be considered to be almost elastic:

When favourable conditions exist, it thrives on epithelium (a surface such as the inner surface of intestines); as soon as the tissue reaction is engaged, it massively transforms itself into a form that is less productive but impervious to attack — the spore.

Candida spores

If then continuous sub-surface anti-fungal solutions take place coupled with a greater reactivity, in that very moment the spores go deeper into the lower connective tissue in a well defended impervious state.

In this way, Candida is free to expand to maturation in the soil, air, water, vegetation, etc., that is, wherever there is no antibody reaction.

In the epithelium, instead, it takes a mixed form, that is reduced to the sole spore component when it penetrates in the lower epithelial levels, where it tends to expand again.

Candida has been studied only in a pathogenic context, that is, only in relation to the epithelial tissues. In reality Candida possesses an aggressive ability that is diversified in response to the target tissue. It is just in the connective or in the connective environment, in fact, and not in the differentiated tissues, that Candida may find conditions favourable to an unlimited expansion. This emerges if we stop and reflect for a moment on the main function of connective tissue, which is to convey and supply nourishing substances to the cells of the whole organism. This is to be considered as an environment external to the more differentiated cells such as nervous, muscular, etc. It is in this context, in fact, that the competition for food takes place. On one hand we have the organism’s cellular elements trying to defeat all forms of invasion; on the other hand, we have fungal cells trying to absorb ever-growing quantities of nourishing substances.

Candida goes deeper into the sub-epithelial levels from which it can be carried to the whole organism through the blood and lymph (intimate mycosis). Stages one and two are the most studied and known, while stage three, though it has been described in its morphological diversity, is reduced to a silent form of saprophytism (obtaining food by absorbing dissolved organic material).

This is not acceptable from a logical point of view, because no one can demonstrate the harmlessness of the fungal cells in the deepest parts of the organism. In fact, the assumption that Candida can behave in the same saprophytic manner that is observed on epitheliums when it has successfully penetrated the lower levels is at least risky.

In fact, we ask you to not accept the theory that the connective environment is (a) not suitable to nourish the Candida, but also at the same time to not accept (b) the belief in the omnipotence of the body’s defense system towards an organic structure that is invasive but that then supposedly becomes vulnerable once lodged in the deeper tissues.

As to point a), it is difficult to imagine that a micro-organism so able to adapt itself to any sub-strata cannot find elements to support itself in the human organic substance; by the same token, it seems risky to hypothesis that the human organism’s defense system is totally efficient at every moment of its existence.

Finally, the assumption that there is a tendency toward a state of vulnerability in the case of this pathogenic fungus — the most invasive and aggressive microorganism existing in nature — seems to carry a whiff of irresponsibility.

It is therefore urgent, on the basis of the above-mentioned considerations, to recognize the hazardous nature of such a pathogenic agent, which is capable of easily taking on a variety of biological configurations, both biochemical and structural, in response to the current environment of the host organism.

The fungal expansion in fact becomes greater as the host tissue becomes less nutritious to the candida, and thus less reactive against it.

I went on a mission to learn the best method for growing a beautiful lawn naturally. I took it back to the historical roots, learned the reasons we are obsessed with it and then saw grass from an ecological standpoint. Grass is an amazing and super beneficial edible and medicinal plant. If there is one plant we should know it’s how to care for grass. All grass can help us improve our soil as a source of nitrogen for compost with all the new growth rich in nutrient and it’s a source of Protozoa and fungi for many holistic soil management methods. Believe it or not the best way to get grass healthy is to make a tea using healthy grass.

All this works with many plants because to get a plant healthy naturally it has to have its support system. The parameters for growing a plant is the plant in many ways.

Like the concept of we need money to make money when we grow we need life to make life. I didn’t just use grass to make my yard grow this well but for those struggling to understand human engineered teas and extracts plant for plant teas can make a big difference. To make a plant to plant fertilizer we can put a plant in a blender, strain and dilute the juice in 5 gallons of fresh water and scoop, drizzle or spray it onto the same plant we blended. Some plants can affect others differently so if you use one plant to fertilize another and get it in the foliage do so with caution using trial and error hesitations. I don’t want to be responsible for someone using a toxic tropical plant on our natives thinking a healthy plant makes a healthy plant. This is only part of the message. D

ifferent plants have and need different microbes. Kale needs actinobacteria but put actinobacteria on tomatoes and you’ll have blight showing in a few days. I want to help but as with many things I’ve learned the standard ecological answer is, “it depends” so look for 2 sides to everything within the biosphere … “that’s life”, as they say.

It all depends how you look at it. “taking over everything” only logically is true when you look ay the fact that industrial chemical ag is what actually has already “taken over everything” and the unwanted side effects are what human hubris is guilty of picking on. Nature has its systems for cleaning up after itself. According to nature these trees are not worthy of survival. It is cold and it is a hard fact about nature which is unforgiving. Humans are the only species that work to ensure the weak survive. Humanity is based on compassion which strives to give everyone a quality of life no matter what. It is a truly beautiful thing about human nature to do that. But it also means we don’t understand that nature is brutal and about strength and numbers only. We just don’t get it.

Allowing it to do its job means not interfering with practices such as tilling, and certainly not the poisonous practices of injecting fracking 600+ chemicals into the soil by the energy industry, polluting water wells, polluting agricultural land, having cows die, using the big ag chemicals etc.

If all the people, who fight for world hunger, poverty, climate change, could understand what Dr Elaine pioneered in her research, and is called “soil”, this world would place Dr Elaine on all billboards along the freeways and other places, and sing her praises.  Once you fix the soil, you fix food problem, you fix nutrition problems which would eliminate many health problems, you fix air problem, you fix air pollution problems, you fix increasing trends in lung health problems, you name it.  The solution for all this is in one word “soil”. In some ways it is ignorance in other ways it’s arrogance that people are “above” the soil, and feel entitled to destroy it.  In fact, at the end of the day, these tiny creatures rule us.  Talk later.

We especially don’t get it when our livelihood is failing because we aren’t managing the earth with respect, only with a desire for money. It is a hard lesson we are learning. Avocado crops failing, coffee plantations failing, bananas gone sterile. Wine grape crops no longer viable in many parts ot the old country.

This is penance for mankind’s action. I sound heartless by saying it but i believe this to be true. I also believe that if we were to respect mother nature she would also turn around our plight faster than we created it. It just requires a leap of faith and a devotion to be a part of the earth instead of to be on top of it all the time.