In January I was the guest of the Sonoma County Mycological Association (SOMA) mushroom camp. It was held in the midst of the redwoods in Sonoma County. What a nice group of people-- and fantastic food! For a cold midwesterner, it was great to be able to collect mushrooms in January. I highly recommend this foray for everyone.
In mid-July, I hosted the 2005 annual foray of the North American Mycological Association in La Crosse. There were about 180 people there from 29 states, Canada, and France. Even though it had been dry, we still found more than 250 species of fungi. I was honored to be presented NAMA's highest award, for Lifetime Contributions to Amateur Mycology. Thank you to the Minnesota Mycological Society and Dr. Dan Czederpiltz for nominating me, and thank you to NAMA for the honor.
In July, I attended the Mycological Society of America/ Mycological Society of Japan joint meeting in Hilo, Hawaii with five of my students and two former students. It was a very good meeting, and we had lots of fun.
The second week of August I was a featured speaker at the Northeast Mycological Federation (NEMF) foray in Mont Alto, Pennsylvania. Again, lots of intersting people and interesting mushrooms.
The second week of September, I helped run a workshop in L'Anse Michiggan: "Edible and Poisonous Mushrooms of Michigan" with Heather Hallen, Gerry Adams, Dan Czederpiltz, Dana Richter, and several of my students. It was a dry year in the UP, but we stilll managed to find some very interesting fungi. We'll likely hold the workshop again next year, so stay tuned.
In October I attended the International Medicinal Mushroom Conference in Port Townsend Washington. I had two Oral Presentations:1. Adam Gusse and Thomas J. Volk. Biodegradation of phenolic resins by white-rot fungi" 2. Thomas J. Volk " The secret sex lives of fungi" I was also a member of the international Scientific Committee and a Foray Leader. It was an excellent meeting put on by Paul Stamets and his crew at Fungi Perfecti.
In December, I will give an invited lecture at the Department of Microbiology and Cell Science at the University of Florida in Gainesville. I am looking forward to being warm for that one weekend.
So far not much is scheduled for 2006. I will likely be in Los Angeles and San Diego in mid-January. Keep watching here for details.
Who knows what the rest of the year may bring in terms of forays. Stay tuned.
It would be great to hear from you. Let me know what you think about these pages.
******************************************** (0) ************ Tom Volk (000) Professor of Biology (00000) 3024 Cowley Hall (00000) University of Wisconsin-La Crosse (00000) La Crosse, Wisconsin 54601 USA (000) volk.thom@uwlax.edu | | ******************************************** | | ************* http://TomVolkFungi.net