Today on the Mushroom Hour Podcast we are honored to be joined by Piotr Zieba, professor’s assistant at the University of Agriculture in Krakow, Poland. Piotr works with gourmet and medical mushrooms and his journey started on Faculty of Biotechnology and Horticulture. During his bioengineering studies he found out that nobody was doing research on mushrooms. So, Piotr took matters into his own hands and organized a Student Science program to start to cultivating mushrooms. At this point in his career, Piotr has completed a master thesis about oyster mushrooms, coauthored 11 scientific papers and is now finishing PhD studies. His work focuses on different properties of mycelium from in vitro culture and fruiting bodies, but also focuses on supplementation of mushroom substrate with novel bio-materials. Working on a multidisciplinary science team, Piotr is currently pursuing all kinds of exciting work on mushrooms from attempting to cultivate wild mushrooms, using nontypical agriculture and food waste in mushroom cultivation and using waste mushroom substrate as fertilizer. His passion for mycology is palpable, and along with a great team of professors, doctors and students he is working to learn everything he can for the glory of mushrooms.   

TOPICS COVERED:   

• Childhood in Nature Picking Mushrooms   
• University of Agriculture Krakow   
• Visions of a Mushroom Cultivating Future in Poland   
• Experiments with Substrate   
• Nutritional Profiles of Mushrooms Grown on Different Substrates   
• Contamination Learning Curve   
• Mycelium vs Fruiting Body Nutritional Compounds   
• Mapping Nutrition Profiles with Differing Growth Parameters   
• Isolating and Cultivating Wild Fungi   
• Impact of Piotr’s Research on his University   
• Advice for Mushroom Cultivators   
• Downstream Applications of Spent Mushroom Substrate   
• Future Cultivation Tech – Ozone Sterilization   

EPISODE RESOURCES:   

• Poland Fungi IG: https://www.instagram.com/polandfungi/   
• Piotr Zieba Researchgate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Zieba-Piotr   
• University of Agriculture in Krakow: https://en.urk.edu.pl/   
• Marasmius alliaceus (Fungus): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycetinis_alliaceus   
• Pleurotus ostreatus (Fungus): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleurotus_ostreatus