When we feel of mushrooms and the southern Mexico state of Oaxaca, the first factor which traditionally comes to mind is María Sabina, Huautla de Jiménez and hallucinogenic “magic” mushrooms. But slowly that’s all changing as a outcome of the groundbreaking operate of Josefina Jiménez and Johann Mathieu in mycology, by means of their enterprise, Mico-lógica.
Based in the village of Benito Juárez, situated in Oaxaca’s Ixtlán district (extra commonly identified as the Sierra Norte, the state’s main ecotourism area), Mico-lógica’s mission is threefold: to train each Mexicans and visitors to the country in the low-cost cultivation of a wide variety of mushroom species to educate about the medicinal, nutritional and environmental (sustainable) value of mushrooms and to conduct ongoing research with regards to optimum climatic regions and the diversity of substrata for mushroom culture.
The French-born Mathieu moved to Mexico, and in fact to Huautla de Jiménez, in 2005. “Yes, coming all the way to Mexico from France to pursue my interest in mushrooms appears like a extended way to travel,” Mathieu explained in a current interview in Oaxaca. “But there really wasn’t a lot of an opportunity to conduct studies and grow a organization in Western Europe,” he continues, “due to the fact reverence for mushrooms had been all but totally eradicated by The Church over the course of centuries and I discovered that Mexico nevertheless maintains a respect and appreciation for the medicinal and nutritional worth of hongos. Mexico is far from mycophobic.”
Huautla de Jiménez is far more than a 5 hour drive from the closest metropolitan center. Accordingly, Mathieu ultimately realized that staying in Huautla, while holding an historic allure and getting in a geographic area conducive to operating with mushrooms, would hinder his efforts to grow a business enterprise and cultivate widespread interest in studying about fungi. Mathieu became cognizant of the burgeoning reputation of Oaxaca’s ecotourism communities of the Sierra Norte, and certainly the Feria Regional de Hongos Silvestres (regional wild mushroom festival), held annually in Cuahimoloyas.
Mathieu met Josefina Jiménez at the summertime weekend mushroom event. Jiménez had moved to Oaxaca from hometown Mexico City in 2002. The two shared equivalent interests Jiménez had studied agronomy, and for close to a decade had been functioning with sustainable agriculture projects in rural farming communities in the Huasteca Potosina area of San Luis Potosí, the mountains of Guerrero and the coast of Chiapas. Mathieu and Jiménez became organization, and then life partners in Benito Juárez.
Mathieu and Jiménez are concentrating on three mushroom species in their hands-on seminars oyster (seta), shitake and reishi. Their one particular-day workshops are for oyster mushrooms, and two-day clinics for the latter two species of fungus. “With reishi, and to a lesser extent shitake, we’re also teaching a fair bit about the medicinal makes use of of mushrooms, so far more time is necessary,” says Mathieu, “and with oyster mushrooms it is predominantly [but not exclusively] a course on cultivation.”
Whilst training seminars are now only provided in Benito Juárez, Mathieu and Jiménez program to expand operations to include things like both the central valleys and coastal regions of Oaxaca. The object is to have a network of producers developing unique mushrooms which are optimally suited for cultivation based on the particular microclimate. There are about 70 sub-species of oyster mushrooms, and as a result as a species, the adaptability of the oyster mushroom to various climatic regions is exceptional. “The oyster can be grown in a multitude of distinct substrata, and that is what we’re experimenting with proper now,” he elucidates. The oyster mushroom can thrive when grown on solutions which would otherwise be waste, such as discard from cultivating beans, sugar cane, agave (such as the fibrous waste produced in mezcal distillation), peas, the typical river reed recognized as carriso, sawdust, and the list goes on. Agricultural waste which may possibly otherwise be left to rot or be burned, every single with adverse environmental implications, can kind substrata for mushroom cultivation. It should really be noted, although trite, that mushroom cultivation is a hugely sustainable, green market. Over the past many years Mexico has in reality been at the fore in many locations of sustainable sector.
easy indoor gardening exemplifies how mushrooms can serve an arguably even higher environmental excellent:
“They can hold up to thirty thousand times their mass, getting implications for inhibiting erosion. They’ve been made use of to clean up oil spills through absorption and as a result are an critical vehicle for habitat restoration. Study has been accomplished with mushrooms in the battle against carpenter ant destruction it is been suggested that the use of fungi has the potential to totally revamp the pesticide business in an environmentally friendly way. There are actually hundreds of other eco-friendly applications for mushroom use, and in each and every case the mushroom remains an edible by-solution. Take a appear at the Paul Stamets YouTube lecture, six Techniques Mushrooms Can Save The Planet.”
Mathieu and Jiménez can often be identified selling their products on weekends in the organic markets in Oaxaca. They are both far more than satisfied to go over the nutritional worth of their merchandise which variety from naturally their fresh mushrooms, but also as preserves, marinated with either chipotle and nopal or jalapeño and cauliflower. The mushroom’s vitamin B12 cannot be located in fruits or vegetables, and accordingly a diet program which involves fungi is exceptionally critical for vegetarians who can not get B12, most frequently contained in meats. Mushrooms can conveniently be a substitute for meats, with the benefit that they are not loaded with antibiotics and hormones often found in industrially processed meat solutions.