Subject: Drought in Boston Area

From: [email-masked] (George Riner)
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 1995 21:44:45 GMT

The almost 3-week long lack of rain fall in the Boston area this August has 
certainly had its impact on the fungal fructifications.  Went to the Fells 
Reservation and only found leftovers from last year's polypores.  Something 
looked like a Bondarzewia berkeleyi that tried to bloom but gave up, all 
stunted and oddly formed.  Even the leaves on trees are wilting.  It was 
stunning/shocking... nothing.   No Armilaria, no Boletus, zip, nada.

This gets people to chattering about 'damage to the mycelium'.  And I wonder, 
just how damaged is the mycelium?  What does a fungus do during extended dry 
periods when the environment is too unfriendly to allow spore production?  
Does the mycelium go dormant, reviving when the environment improves?  Or does 
it actually die and one just hopes that there are sufficient spores left 
ungerminated from last season to carry through to next year?

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From: [email-masked] (Jonathan R. Seagrave)
Date: 31 Aug 1995 09:03:00 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked]

> ungerminated from last season to carry through to next year?

George,  I'm under the impression that most mycelium just kinda hangs out
and stays dormant.  It's remarkably resilient stuff really.  I could be
completely wrong however -- it's not something I've seen texts address. It
never seems to get dry enough on this side of the country to  for me to
have much experience with that; thank goodness.  Damage to mycelium due to
drying is mostly due to damage to the substrate itself -- if the ground
gets so dry it blow away for example.  I've seen petri dishes of mycilium
forgotten on a self for a year suddenly sprout miniature fruiting bodies! 
they were barely a mm tall and looked like they were growing right out of
the glass (as all the agar had long dried away) After seeing that it's
hard to imagine mycelium actually dying due to drought alone.

jrs     http://www.az.com:/~jrs
--
The other day I saw a bumper sticker which read "Honk if you passed 
p-chem."  I honked and the driver flipped me off.  I guess he didn't pass

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From: Richard W. Kerrigan <[email-masked]>
Date: 31 Aug 1995 08:54:01 -0400

Some species of Agaricus in California (including A. bisporus) appear to 
fruit abundantly only at the end of a drought; that is, a series of wet 
years will be unproductive.  In the southeastern part of the state, where 
A. bisporus var. burnettii occurs, a decade of dormancy (reproductive 
quiescence, actually) may be about average (based on less than two 
decades experience).
-- 
Richard W. Kerrigan, Research Department, Sylvan Spawn Laboratory, Inc.		
               1163 Winfield Rd., Cabot, PA  16032  USA
e-mail:	[email-masked]      phone: 412-352-1521      fax: 412-352-4062
	"Success has a thousand parents; failure is an orphan"