The Newsletter of the Pikes Peak Mycological Society
1974-2020 Vol. XLVII
Issue 3
pg. 8
Slash and Spawn at the Crags: A Volunteer Day with the Coalition for the Upper South Platte By Mercedes Perez Whitman
The Coalition for the Upper South Platte (CUSP) is a 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofit focused on protecting the watershed’s ecological integrity. They have been studying native wood-rotting mushrooms’ ability to degrade woody biomass and transform it into compost material for the past six years. The study arose from the need to deal with forest slash and post-fire landscape restoration more efficiently than current methods. In June, PPMS member and friend Anna Wermuth and I volunteered for their last session of the series of lab and installation days for the fungal degradation study. The lab days where the spawn bags were made to be used at the installations took place at the Conifer-based mushroom company Mile High Fungi. Due to the coronavirus pandemic the lab days were cancelled for volunteers. The other inoculation was at the Denver Botanic Gardens’ Chatfield Farm earlier in the month. We met in the Crags at the giant slash piles you see on the left as you drive up to the campgrounds and trails. Myceliated spawn blocks of native wood rotting mushrooms were buried in piles of the leftover slash the Forest Service produced in their fire mitigation endeavors. Jeff Ravage, the North
