Mycology Weekend Workshop with Jay Justice, Jay Pitts, and Kerri McCabe

This is a unique opportunity to spend 3 days with mushroom experts Jay Justice and his colleagues. Through guided hikes and lessons, Jay will teach you techniques for identifying mushrooms. Meals are included, and there will be multiple "mycocentric" meals! Stay overnight in one of our lodges or campsites.

Workshop schedule: 

Friday

• 4-5PM - Arrive, settle in
• 5-6PM - Meet and mingle
• 6-7:30PM - Dinner
• 7:30-8:30PM - General overview on Mushrooms and How to collect and document them, followed by and Q&A session (Kerri)

Saturday

• 8-9AM - Breakfast
• 9-10AM - Presentation on some common fall fungi. (ME)
• 10AM-12PM - Mushroom hunting hike
• 12-12:30PM - Setting up the collected mushrooms/fungi for spore prints (Kerri, Mike, and Jay)
• 12:30-1:30PM – Lunch
• 1:30-3:30 PM – Introduction to Growing Your Own Mushrooms/Fungi presentation, including hands-on portion Inoculating Substrate with Oyster Mycelium (Mike)
• 3:45 – 4:45 PM - Presentation on an overview of Medicinal Uses of Fungi (Jay)
• 5:00- 6:00 PM – Cooking Demo (Kerri and Mike)
• 6:00-7:30 PM - Mycocentric Dinner
• 7:30-8:30 PM - Cooking and Making Extracts with Mushrooms (Mike)
• 8:30-10PM - optional night hike and mushroom hunt with UV light

Sunday

• 8-9AM - Breakfast
• 9AM-11PM - Mushroom hunting hike
• 11-12:30PM - Mushroom identification of recently found mushrooms/fungi and final review of collected specimens (Kerri, Mike & Jay)
• 12:30-1:30PM - Lunch
• 1:30-2PM - Wrap up and Departure

Ticket Options:

• To attend the workshop, purchase a Workshop Ticket (below) - includes all meals from Friday dinner through Sunday lunch.
• To add lodging, choose a room in a lodge, glampsite, or campsite. When you purchase a room with multiple beds, you are welcome to add other workshop guests to your room at no extra cost.
• Add-on: Oyster Mushroom Spawn - During the workshop, Mike Synder will provide a cultivation lesson by inoculating substrate with oyster mushroom spawn, which participants may take home with them.

About the Instructors:

Jay Justice became enthralled with mushrooms and fungi while pursuing a graduate degree many years ago. After completing his graduate degree, Jay joined the North American Mycological Association (NAMA) in 1980. In 1982, he was instrumental in forming the Arkansas Mycological Society and participated in his first NAMA foray in 1985. He has been a prominent member of NAMA, and a well-known mycologist in the decades since. In 2011, Justice was the recipient of the Gary Lincoff Award for Contributions to Amateur Mycology, an award that is given each year by NAMA to recognize service performed by selected amateur or professional mycologists. He has co-authored several research papers in mycological journals. Jay continues to serve as a lecturer and mushroom foray leader for mycological societies and mushroom clubs, particularly in the Southeast. He has recently co-authored the book Amanitas in North America, which was published in June of 2020.

Jay Pitts is a sixth generation native Arkansan who lives in the Ozark mountains and specializes in foraging edible mushrooms year round. He's an Arkansas Master Naturalist and a member of the Arkansas Mycological Society, the Missouri Mycological Society, and the North American Mycological Association. Jay has been picking morels since the 1980's in Madison county, and he teaches an introduction to fungi class for the Arkansas Master Naturalists.

Kerri McCabe was born and raised in the River Valley of Arkansas where she was enthralled with nature at an early age. She attended the University of Central Arkansas with early plans to be a marine biologist, but discovered a love for plants along the way and graduated with a BS in Biology – Plant Sciences.  For her graduate work at UCA, she returned to zoology, conducting her thesis work with pit vipers and ectothermic ecophysiology. She’s taught introductory biology courses at UCA, and assisted research in aquatic ecology of endemic species in the Ozark Highlands for UA – Fayetteville. She sees her recent passion for mycology as  a marriage of too old loves in botany and zoology as fungi connect the other two kingdoms with their intertwining mycelium.  She’s mentored by Jay Justice, President of the Arkansas Mycological Society and is a member of fifteen different mycological clubs, societies, or associations, including the Gulf States Mycological Association.  She’s learned that being a mycophile is a lifestyle, and will talk mushrooms all day! She currently works for the Arkansas Division of Environmental Quality protecting Arkansas’ water resources.

Mike Snyder is a mushroom educator from the Ozarks and has been busy doing talks, walks and workshops about mushrooms in the region for the past few years. He has been foraging and studying fungi for 13 years and has been cultivating mushrooms for about 3 years, focusing on outdoor growing methods. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Missouri Mycological Society and is one of their official mushroom identification experts, having earned the Harry Thiers Certificate of Mushroom Proficiency. He is a proud member of the North American Mycological Association Cultivation Committee as well. Mike and his wife Cara have a small business, WildWise Botanicals. They wild-harvest and cultivate mushrooms and herbs and create micro-batches of various products from them. The focus of their business has shifted to education in the past few years, and Mike has been fortunate enough to teach a great deal of people about fungi in that time. He is a passionate mushroom enthusiast who loves nothing more than introducing people to the wild mushrooms of our region and showing them how to cultivate gourmet and medicinal mushrooms at home.