September brings us feast of colors, greatest mushroom yield and a Mushroom Festival, which is traditionally held in a central museum of Khanty-Mansiysk, Museum of Man and Nature. I like this event, as it sort of draws conclusions about past field season work and gives me the opportunity to share collected skills and knowledge with others. The team of the museum organizes the Festival the second year and i am glad to assist in this wonderful meeting.
The Festival includes the exposition of Mushrooms which we pick in the forest a day before: about 50 species were presented this year. We tried to show edible and poisonous, with special attention to deadly poisonous species. Also, not edible but nonetheless beautiful and diverse species from different systematic groups were showed so that the visitors could appreciate the full diversity of fungal world. Mushrooms with other applied values were there as well: several dyeing species; Fomes fomentarius and its Amadou products; Inonotus obliquus, Ganoderma lucidum and other well-known medicinal species. Furthermore, the Festival included a lecture about «How to grow Pleurotus pulmonations at home» and of course, the growing blocks with the primordia and fully-grown clusters were visually presented.
The laboratory of fungal micro-world had been working there as well with microscopes and lenses available for those willing to look into the unknown. Children were additionally invited to participate in the craft lessons using natural materials. Everything was decorated by lots of posters, photographs and postcards.
Hoping that this would make a good event for everybody who lacks information about our local mushrooms or wants to ignite their interest in this field.
Here some links and materials:
My short report to the Mushrooms exposition (in Russian).
The announcements of Mushroom Festival:
https://vk.com/wall-9559391_1620
https://vk.com/wall-9559391_1623
The movie made about the Mushroom Festival -2015 under the link:
https://vk.com/video-9559391_456239026
And the full photo album is here:
https://vk.com/wall-9559391_1620