Howdy Mycopreneurs,

Today we’ve got a round up of global fungi news and a recap of last weekend’s Western New York Fungi Festival. Please note there will be no incubator today as it’s my 10 year wedding anniversary ( :

A new review of human trials involving Lion’s Mane and Reishi highlights a major problem facing the functional mushroom industry: clinical evidence often lacks the detail needed to translate findings into real-world products. Robin Gurney of Estonia-based functional mushroom company Musheez makes the case for “better research reporting and better discipline in how studies are interpreted commercially” in an article published September 2 on leading functional food, beverage, and supplement industry online news platform Nutra Ingredients.

Studies frequently report dosage without adequately identifying mushroom species, extraction methods, compounds, metabolites or intervention characteristics. That makes it difficult for manufacturers to reproduce research outcomes, and for consumers to know whether commercial products resemble those used in trials. Gurney argues that as mushroom innovation accelerates, standardization, material characterization and rigorous analytical testing will become increasingly important competitive advantages, separating evidence-backed products from opportunistic formulations.

The article also features perspectives from Nammex and Real Mushrooms COO Bill Chioffi:

“Material without characterization on a label tells you almost nothing about what was actually tested; two studies can both say ‘500 mg/day and still be describing materially different interventions.”

A randomized eight-week trial of 218 adults with chronic insomnia found standardized Reishi mushroom extract produced significantly greater improvements in insomnia severity than 5 mg of melatonin nightly. Participants taking 980 mg of reishi standardized to 6% triterpenes saw ISI scores fall 8.7 points versus 5.6 with melatonin. No serious adverse events were reported. Researchers say the findings support reishi as a potential alternative for insomnia, though longer-term research is needed. Because the results were presented as a conference abstract, they should be considered preliminary rather than definitive evidence of efficacy.

I’ll tap in personally and say that Reishi extract has been tremendous in my own personal night time routine, helping me fully relax and wind down before catching some deep sleep. Lock in!

We’ve partnered with Volume.com and PRPS to bring you a special series of podcasts in the run up to the inaugural Phoenix Rising Psychedelic Speakeasy in Nashville on November 5th. We’ve released two episodes in the series so far, with the most recent being recorded and broadcast globally on Wednesday, September 2nd with Charles Patti of Eleusis in St. Vincent and The Grenadines.

Eleusis is one of the world’s first Extended-state DMT centers, meaning that the center delivers medical-grade DMT intravenously to put people into prolonged DMT experiences lasting up to an hour as opposed to the typical 5 minute window.

The fact that conversations like this are being broadcast on the same platform where Sheryl Crowe and Billy Strings are streaming shows a heightened receptivity to formerly fringe cultural concepts in mainstream culture - our next episode with Nutritious streams on September 10.

From our partners: There are so many potent, alkaloid-containing ethnobotanicals from around the world that most people in the United States are just starting to learn about — from Kanna to Amanita muscaria mushrooms to kava, Healing Herbals is your one stop shop for fully legal, third-party tested magic plants.

An analysis of a recent article published on Spore Growth, written by Alex Sherman (August 21)

A functional mushroom COA is only as useful as the testing strategy behind it. Different analytical methods, extraction processes, suppliers and product matrices can produce materially different results, potentially making label claims inaccurate. Spore Growth Partners argues brands should define what question a test answers, select appropriate methods and specifications, and ensure results remain tied to the finished product. Ultimately, COAs should be part of a broader quality system, with evidence supporting specifications, supplier diligence, manufacturing decisions and defensible product claims.

The mushroom supplement for pets category just had a major new competitor enter: Host Defense mushrooms, Paul Stamets’ company.

Keep an eye on this space for sure as it continues to heat up - the CBD pet supplement market is already estimated to be in excess of $500 million, with the mushrooms for pets category rising right alongside it.

Our crowd raising initiative to help fund the 4th Annual Moni Fest mushroom festival in Chiapas, Mexico and related conservation work is in full swing. We’ve raised $110 of our $1300 goal in our first week, and we welcome any contribution big or small to help further this essential work.

My debut article for Cannabis Now is out this week and covers the economic resilience that cannabis tourism in Jamaica has helped foster in the wake of the Category 5 Hurricane Melissa that ravaged the island in October of 2025. Cannabis Now is one of the premiere cannabis media platforms in the industry, and was the first cannabis media property to be sold on iTunes as well as in Barnes & Noble. This article is for their most recent print magazine, but was published digitally this week.

I’ll be traveling to Portugal this month to deliver a keynote lecture on the Biocultural Heritage of Mushrooms at the IMMC13 conference in Bragança, a castle town in the northeast of the country.

The goal of the IMMC conference is to foster a dynamic, multidisciplinary forum – bringing together experts from mycology, nutrition, immunology, microbiome research, biotechnology, agro-food systems, policy, and beyond – to share the latest findings, spark collaborations, and explore the full potential of mushrooms for health, sustainability, and innovation. Previous editions of the conference have been held in Shanghai, China, Belgrade, Serbia, and Bari, Italy among other international locations. \

It’s midday and I’m huddled in a 200 degree sauna across from a freestyle rapper with a penchant for mushroom-centric wordplay as he reels off ad lib after ad lib. This is the first part of a two part experiment – freestyling in the heat, then freestyling in an ice bath outside to see how the elements affect the delivery.

After a few bars in the sauna to warm up – okay, more like fire up since it was way past warm in there – I followed the lead of Fungi Flows and jumped in an ice bath out front of the sauna to deliver a series of sub-zero phrasings:

“In the Himalayas with the herb that’s fresh – my girl and I are kicking it like Shiva and Ganesh / I’m chilling like Moses with the Burning Bush – sitting on a quarter pound of Hindu Kush”

The spontaneous spouting off from the ice bath was recorded for posterity and soon uploaded to Instagram, racking up 200,000 views and minting my first viral freestyle. Now I just need an emcee name – ‘MF Shroom’ was suggested by one of the commenters.

The Western New York Fungi Festival kicked off its first edition from August 28 - 30 outside of Buffalo, New York, hosting an assortment of fungi workshops, educators, musical performances, and the myco-curious. 

The festival had a unique offering that I haven’t seen elsewhere on the ever-expanding mushroom event circuit: a pair of mobile, wood-burning saunas with ice  baths out front pumping 24/7. This novel addition to the festival programming functioned as a centerpiece to the social activities on offer; around the clock you could find people deep into a sauna sweat, lowering their core temperatures in the ice baths, and sweating out the chemical traces of last week’s bender. 

The line between festival performers and attendees was erased in the dry heat cedar hot box, as it was elsewhere across the festival grounds; WNY Fungi Festival quickly established itself as a place where experts and novices broke bread together, where community and commerce effortlessly co-existed, and where science and art melded together. 

I did a one hour mushroom comedy set to kick off the festivities on Friday afternoon at 12 pm, squeezing a surprisingly sizable crowd out of the first day of the fest. I never know the temperament of the audience I’m encountering when first performing in a new region with unfamiliar cultural norms and political leanings – are these people fringe lunatics like me who can appreciate a proper ribalding, or are they prudish self-righteous types who will revolt against anyone skewering the longstanding tradition of standing armies being high on various substances? For example, ketamine was first rolled out as a field anesthetic for U.S. troops during the Vietnam War; imagine being wounded in a foxhole and getting dapped up with K from the field medic such that you’re now juggling being in a foxhole and a k-hole simultaneously! The joke landed – phew! 

Later on in the day, self-taught mycologist and truffle trailblazer William Padilla-Brown of MycoSymbiotics quite literally charted new scientific territory with his presentation on North American truffles. These mysterious and ancient aromatic subterranean fungi grow underground and have been widely celebrated in Europe, Africa, and the SWANA region for millennia. It turns out they also occur across North America, though there is no tradition here around them. Only a small percentage of truffles are useful culinarily, but those that are possess a uniqueness of flavor and aroma profile that makes them extraordinarily in demand by gourmands and connoisseurs – some have the aroma of gasoline or old french fries while others come across with subtle coca and tobacco notes. When infused into foods such as Will is doing with Mr. Truff’s gourmet pop-up food cart, word spreads quickly and people line up 10 deep to grab their truffle burgers. It turns out that the majority of truffle dishes on the market, such as the ubiquitous ‘truffle oil fries’ that one often finds at bistros and breweries, are made using lab-derived synthetic truffle flavoring and not the real deal. 

Throughout the weekend there were presentations on inoculating logs with edible fungi, properly hydrating and preparing grain spawn for mushroom cultivation, and other similar high value educational seminars leading people towards food security and better health. 

If it wasn’t for turnkey exotic mushroom grow kits such as those proffered by Booming Acres, I wouldn’t even know that it was possible to grow mushrooms at home – but the fact is that the DIY mushroom revolution is here, and there’s room for everyone. Cost of groceries going sky high? Grow some Oysters, Lion’s Mane, and Pioppino! 

The festival featured live music each afternoon and night, with the highlight surely being Fungi Flows popping off in his element on stage in a mushroom getup while freestyling based on words and ideas fed to him by the crowd. You know that your festival is lit when you’ve got a dude dressed as a mushroom freestyle battling a drone circling him on stage with bars that challenge the perceived terminator-style robot takeover.

“If AI is coming for all the jobs, I feel like I’m safe up here, because who really wants to see a robot try to spit bars in a mushroom fit like this?!” says the witty rapper in between beats. 

KK of Flora Funga Podcast rounded out the festival keynote programming with a talk on ‘Nerdy Jobs’, sharing insights into how people can get paid to pursue their love of mushrooms and biology. I personally had no idea that anyone was getting paid for working with mushrooms, I naturally assumed it was a volunteer job with compensation coming in the form of Instagram clout.

I’ve never been to Burning Man, and I intend to keep that record intact – if the goal is radical self-expression, creativity, and resourcefulness, the Western New York Fungi festival has all the bases covered and then some. I’ve already blocked off the dates for next year's fest, and the invitation is extended to come join us. We’ll keep the fires tended and the beat going in the sauna, and when you’re ready, you can hop in the cypher and be part of the action.

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DW