Dirt Matters — A Journey in the Mycosphere

With Dr Alison Pouliot

Workshop description

The need to produce high quality food while minimising environmental damage is one of the biggest challenges for Australian agriculturalists. Healthy biological soils are crucial to plant health including our food crops. In turn, human health depends on high food quality and hence good soil health.

Modern agriculture with its intensive use of chemicals, fertilisers and mechanical disturbance has largely eliminated soil organisms. However, innovative farmers and gardeners are turning things around by fostering fungi and other organisms within soils. Central to this is an understanding of symbioses between plants, fungi and their kin.

This talk provides an overview of the vital significance of fungi in soils and their roles in creating soil architecture, retaining water, increasing nutrient availability and maximising drought resistance. Greater attention to fungal-plant relationships can help us build resilience of our ecosystems, especially at a time of changing climate and water scarcity.

Please note, this is just one of about two dozen workshops on offer. Please enquire for further information.

Target audience(s)

Workshops are targeted at adults, including those in the scientific community, people working in land restoration, landcare, landscape management, landscape architects, horticulturalists, gardeners, farmers, agronomists, arborists, ecologists, foresters, forayers/foragers, anyone interested in fungi and the wider general public.

Workshop length

I offer everything from one hour to week-long workshops. Please enquire for further information.

Workshop requirements

Depends on the workshop. Please enquire for further information.

Booking & Inquiries

Those interested in hosting a workshop can contact me directly with a brief at alison@alisonpouliot.com.

Mycena interrupta. Photo by Dr Alison Pouliot.

Facilitator bio

DR ALISON POULIOT is an ecologist, author and professional environmental photographer with a focus on fungi. Her work spans both northern and southern hemispheres ensuring two autumns and a double dose of fungi each year. Alison is actively involved in teaching, research and conservation, and lectures across a range of environmental and photographic themes. Her writing and images appear in both scientific literature and the popular press and she is author of The Allure of Fungi, Wild Mushrooming, Underground Lovers, Meetings with Remarkable Mushrooms, Funga Obscura and Mushroom Day (in press). Further information available at www.alisonpouliot.com