On Friday, February 17, a rainy afternoon, students gathered in the Office of LGBTQ resources on Prospect Street for lentil soup, fresh bread, and some agricultural learning. While the Old Acre has been quiet during these cold winter months, the YSFP community has been staying warm, connected, and engaged in food systems work, continuing our Friday learning tradition with indoor knead 2 know discussions.
This week, students gathered to hear Raina Sparks ’25, a 2022 Yale Farm Summer Intern, share what she learned about mycorrhizal fungi networks, which are fungi that interact with plant roots, forming complicated and extensive mutualistic connections.
After spending her gap year working on an organic farm, Raina has been fascinated by the complex nature of fungi. They began their presentation with slides of various mushrooms they’ve found hiking around New England. For their project this summer, Raina attempted to grow Blue Oyster Mushrooms. She walked attendees through the process of inoculation and pasteurizing substrates, experimenting with materials like burlap, wheat, and rye. Raina left the mushrooms in a cool, dark spot in the YSFP office to grow. While Raina didn’t end up with giant blue oyster mushrooms as expected, she did grow some small, endearing mushrooms, and she’s eager to try again.
Raina originally intended to complement their summer project with online research. After their computer broke unexpectedly in the middle of the summer, they pivoted and made a series of gorgeous oil pastel drawings inspired by mycorrhizal fungi, letting their imagination run wild with “adult crayons.” The very nature of her art medium, Raina emphasized, is an encapsulation of the spirit of fungi. Just as the colors of pastels bleed, combine, and overlap, so too do fungal networks; the organisms are “playful and collaborative.” Raina’s art pieces spoke to themes of nourishment, abundance, and mutualism. She also spoke about the history of the Blue Oyster Mushroom; growing the mushrooms became more commonplace during World War I to address food scarcity. Americans have come to rely on mushrooms for their heartiness—they are now a commonplace meat substitute.
Last semester, Raina took Professor Marlyese Duguid’s Forest Dynamics course at the Yale School of the Environment, in which she made mycorrhizal fungi the subject of the course’s annotated bibliography research project. Raina shared their additional findings from this work, elaborating on the impacts of varying soil CO2 and nitrogen levels. Raina discussed fungi’s responsiveness to environmental disturbances; fungi are incredibly attuned to changes in their host plant and are able to bounce back quickly.
To end her k2k, Raina extrapolated on the connected nature of fungi networks as allegory and blueprint for human communities. They discussed how they came to see fungi as symbolic of the power of mutualistic care and impact. It was a fascinating talk, and we would love to see you at the next one! Join us at 12:30 P.M. in the Office of LGBTQ Resources at 135 Prospect St. No registration is required.