The SAC Series

SAC #21: The 50 million-year-old association between trees and mushrooms: what could be a more sustainable source of food and income?

When

Friday, 11 August 2006, 4 - 5:30pm

Where

Seminar Room: Centre for Innovation, Cnr St David Street and Castle Streets

Speaker

Alexis Guerin, PhD., Crop & Food Research

Abstract

Alexis Guerin will discuss ongoing research by Crop and Food into the commercial potential of mycorrhizal fungi. His talk will consider fundamental ecological rules governing mycorrhizal symbiosis and will introduce us to some of the state-of-the-art approaches to cultivating edible mushrooms. He will also comment on the R&D challenges for commercial applications.

Alexis obtained his PhD at I.N.R.A. Montpellier in France, working on the so-called "red milk cap mushrooms" (Lactarius), then spent 5 years at The university of Tokyo working on "matsutake" (Pine mushroom in Japanese, a delicacy in Japan), stopped by the Université Laval in Québec for 6 months, and then joined the edible fungi team of Crop and Food in early 2004. He has been in charge of the research activities since March 2005.