Fungi Futures

Notes from the field

This week a reader alerted me to a discussion taking place in the UK Parliament all about Fungi and the potential for it in areas like farming, medicine, manufacturing and more.

I love it when you share things like this with me, please don’t hesitate to do so. (Thank you,

Charlotte Coneybeer

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Harnessing the power of fungi.

If you’ve read my novel, Earthly Bodies, you’ll know that the world of mycelium and fungi is fascinating to me. Myco experts and enthusiasts are working at the forefront of this exciting field. Evidencing and discovering its potential in so many areas, not least to help clear up our human messes like oil spills, plastic etc

So the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee at the House of Commons have started to listen to the experts and brought them in for a chat.

You can watch the whole discussion here. Apart from the fact it’s incredibly interesting, it is great to see the genuine excitement and enthusiasm the scientists have for their topic.

Fungi are essential to life on earth and yet so many of us know very little about them.

The fungi experts;

• Dr Merlin Sheldrake, Biologist and Author of Entangled Life (brilliant book!)¹

• Professor Irina Druzhinina, Senior Research Leader in Fungal Diversity & Systematics, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

• Professor Katie J Field, Plant-Soil Processes, University of Sheffield

• Professor Paul Dyer, Fungal Biology, University of Nottingham

• Professor Matthew Fisher, Fungal Disease Epidemiology, Imperial College London

• Professor Marc Stadler, Head of Microbial Drugs, Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research

Here’s a Lions Mane I grew last year!

1. This is an affiliate link, which means if you buy the book using my link, I’ll get a small amount of the total. There’s no extra cost to you.