Basic Mushroom Biology Ecology

The Beet: A Podcast For Plant Lovers

Epic Gardening

Home & Garden, Education, Leisure, How To

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 15 May 2023

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Dr. Gordon Walker, the creator behind @FascinatedByFungi, introduces us to the wild, wonderful, and mostly undiscovered world of mushrooms Connect With Dr. Gordon Walker: Dr. Gordon Walker is originally from Cambridge, MA but came to California to attend UC Santa Cruz, where he got a B.S. in Biochemistry and spent his free time sailing, scuba diving, and home brewing. Inspired to study fermentation, Gordon came to UC Davis and joined Dr. Linda Bisson's laboratory to focus on the biochemistry, genetics, and ecology of yeast in wine. After graduating with his Ph.D. in 2016, Gordon worked two harvests at Opus One helping to pioneer the use of novel fermentation control technology. He then returned to UC Davis to do post-doctorate work with Dr. Ron Runnebaum focused on how site specificity and elemental composition can affect fermentation behavior. Since he was a kid, Gordon has harbored a deep fascination with all things fungi; inspired by puffballs, chicken of the woods, truffles, and the microbial mishmash that produces sour beers. While living in New Zealand after finishing his PhD, Gordon took on the new hobby of mushroom foraging and started documenting his finds on Instagram. Through his social media (@FascinatedByFungi) he has reached millions around the globe, sharing the amazing diversity of colors, form, and function in the fungi kingdom. He is a renowned science communicator, published academic author, and award-winning speaker. His goal is to teach the world about mushrooms; inspiring others to take an active role in protecting nature and building a more sustainable future. Instagram Facebook YouTube TikTok Pinterest Patreon Website Buy Birdies Garden Beds Use code EPICPODCAST for 5% off your first order of Birdies metal raised garden beds, the best metal raised beds in the world. They last 5-10x longer than wooden beds, come in multiple heights and dimensions, and look absolutely amazing. Click here to shop Birdies Garden Beds Buy My Book My book, Field Guide to Urban Gardening, is a beginners guide to growing food in small spaces, covering 6 different methods and offering rock-solid fundamental gardening knowledge: Order on Amazon Order a signed copy Follow Epic Gardening YouTube Instagram Pinterest Facebook Facebook Group Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome my friends to mushroom week here on the epic gardening podcast. Today we're joined
0:17.6	by Dr. Gordon Walker, a TikTok friend of mine. Believe it or not, I meet the most interesting
0:22.8	people on the internet these days and I'm really excited to chat with you Gordon. You are
0:28.0	biochemist. I personally know you as the guy who does some interesting things with
0:34.9	fun guy on the internet and so you know I'd love to hear a little bit more obviously TikToks,
0:39.2	not how you came to be right. It's just sort of how a lot of people came to know you. Yeah,
0:42.8	a little pat on that mushroom there. So what's up? I'm glad to have you on the show.
0:47.4	Thanks for having me Kevin. I came from Massachusetts originally bounced out to California to
0:53.5	go to Santa Cruz and end up doing a lot like sailing and home brewing and scuba and in that time I
0:59.0	got kind of obsessed with fermentation and from that I got obsessed with yeast. So I ended up
1:03.7	going to grad school at UC Davis and studying the dynamics of yeast and fermentation and how they
1:09.4	interacted with the other microbes in their community and really sort of dove deep into those
1:14.1	ecological interactions as it pertained to making wine and beer and the flavors you get.
1:20.2	And then I came out of that and ended up living in New Zealand for a little while and I just
1:24.9	be writing papers and stuff like that and I didn't like writing papers so I ended up going for hikes
1:29.4	and I got you know stir crazy from being inside and I started finding tons of mushrooms because it
1:33.6	was a big rainy year there and you know the seasons are offset in New Zealand so I was there
1:39.1	in like March but it was sort of their fall and I started just taking tons and tons of pictures
1:44.8	of mushrooms and realized I couldn't keep spamming my normal Instagram friends so I started
1:49.5	a mushroom specific Instagram account and then that eventually evolved into a TikTok and as part
1:55.5	of that whole journey I kind of was like I originally started by just taking static photos
1:59.8	and I realized as much as you did that like short form video was kind of a new wave of making
	...

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