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Written by Martin Zorrilla

This is the first installment in a series on the practices, the people and the culinary traditions of forest farming for  mushrooms. On our travels we were fortunate in meeting some the pioneers, traditionalists, and scientists that believe in the global potential of mushroom cultivation. The story of this niche field begins where we began our trip, the town of Ithaca, New York.

Growing edible and medicinal mushrooms under the shade of trees is not a new thing. The earliest fungiculture methods date to 1000 years ago during the Song Dynasty in China. In Japan, where modern cultivation was invented, logs were used to grow Shiitake under the shade of Shii trees in the 12th century. A lot has changed since then, for example the button mushrooms on your pizza are now grown in in trays of horse manure in industrial settings, but much has also stayed the same. Read More »Forest Farming in New York