There’s Fungus Among Us – Different Ways to Deal with Fungal Issues

Chelsi Abbott, technical advisor for the Davey Institute, talks about the positives and negatives of fungi, her Davey career and what employee ownership means to her while we celebrate Employee Ownership Month through the month of October.  

To celebrate Employee Ownership Month, stay tuned to the end of each episode throughout the month of October to hear what each Davey guest enjoys about employee ownership at Davey.      

In this episode we cover:  

• How fungi can be a positive (0:50) 
• Chelsi’s favorite fungi (1:13)  
• The relationship between trees and fungi (2:10)  
• Should you add fungi to your soil? (3:15) 
• Other positives of fungi (4:20) 
• The beauty of fungi and uses for it (6:55) 
• More of Chelsi’s favorite fungi (12:28) 
• What is artillery fungus and what does it do? (13:00) 
• Negatives of fungi (15:04) 
• Chelsi’s job as a technical advisor (16:16) 
• Leaf diseases and fungicide (18:30) 
• How Chelsi got into fungi (19:45) 
• Fungal diseases Chelsi worries about (20:30) 
• Working with oak wilt (23:08) 
• Climate Change (25:50) 
• What Chelsi enjoys about her work (27:14) 
• What employee ownership means to Chelsi (27:45)   

To find your local Davey office, check out our find a local office page to search by zip code.

To learn more about diseases caused by fungi, read our blog, Common Spring Plant and Tree Diseases Caused by Fungi. 

To learn more about oak wilt and other oak diseases, read our blog, Why Are My Oak Tree Leaves Turning Brown? 

To learn more about identifying fungi on trees, read our blog, What Are These Green Spots on My Tree’s Trunk or Branches? 

Connect with Davey Tree on social media:
Twitter: @DaveyTree
Facebook: @DaveyTree
Instagram: @daveytree
YouTube: The Davey Tree Expert Company
LinkedIn: The Davey Tree Expert Company

Have topics you'd like us to cover on the podcast? Email us at podcasts@davey.com. We want to hear from you!    

Transcript

[music]

Doug: Welcome to the Davey Tree Expert company's podcast, Talking Trees. I'm your host, Doug Oster. Each week, our expert arborists share advice on seasonal tree care, how to make your trees thrive, arborists' favorite trees, and much, much more. Tune in every Thursday to learn more because here at the Talking Trees podcast we know trees are the answer. I'm joined again this week by Chelsi Abbott. She is a technical advisor and education specialist with the Davey Institute. She's based in Chicago. Today we're talking all about fungi, and Chelsi, you said that's one of your favorite subjects, right?

Chelsi : It absolutely is, because I think most people have an aversion to fungi, so I am a fungi advocate.

Doug: Well, that's what my first question was. Fungi doesn't have to be a negative. It can be a positive also, right?

Chelsi : In fact, it's mostly a positive. Very few fungi, a small percentage, are actually diseases or disease-causing organisms, and so the majority are beneficial in doing incredible things that mostly go unnoticed.

Doug: Fill me in. What's your favorite fungi?

Chelsi : Oh, man. Okay. Ooh, that's a hard question. I have so many favorite fungi, but I'd have to say as a tree lover, my favorite group of fungi would be the mycorrhizae. Which these are fungi that form associations with trees to help them absorb nutrients, absorb water, and in some cases actually communicate with each other. I'm sure you've heard of, I believe it's called, either the Tree Internet or Wood Wide Web. I know it as the common mycorrhizal network because that's just the name that I know it by, but it's essentially just fungi helping trees survive and trees helping other trees through fungi.

Doug: All right. Try and walk me through this. I've heard of mycorrhizal fungi, but I really don't understand how it works. Is it some kind of symbiotic relationship? Is that what we're talking about here?

Chelsi : You are 100% correct, yes. Mycorrhizae form a symbiotic. Symbiotic means that both hosts benefit. The fungi get a little bit of food and a home, and the trees or the plants that they're forming association with get nutrients, and water, and also this benefit of being able to communicate. They're both getting something out of the relationship.

Really what happens is the fungi actually colonize the root system with things called hyphae. Which if you've ever looked at mulch and there's sort of some white stuff growing on the mulch, that's hyphae, that's fungi. That's just really the growing structure. The hyphae will colonize the root system and expand it so that the roots can reach farther and then therefore get more nutrients and water.

Doug: Is that mycorrhizal fungi always there or it's in different spots? I've read different things where people say, "Yes, add mycorrhizal fungi while you're planting," or I've heard other things like, "Well, it has to be a specific type of soil." What can you tell me about that?

Chelsi: That's a great question. It's the question on everybody's mind, so I will answer it with a caveat. We are learning constantly about this. This is fairly new. It was originally thought that mycorrhizae just simply could be added, and that's something that you could do, but now we're pumping the brakes on that because they're finding that a lot of mycorrhizas will just naturally exist in the soil. Some people are starting to say, well, what if we're inoculating the soil with non-native mycorrhizae when we're doing something like that?

Again, not a lot is known about that, but really the skinny of it is that the only time you should really be adding mycorrhizas to the soil is if there's some sort of ecological disaster, like flooding or tillage, that has destroyed the soil microbiome.

Doug: When you have your list of fungi there, what are some other positives out there? Then we'll start talking about some negatives.

Chelsi: Sure.

Doug: It seems as though the negative fungi is what everybody knows about, but the positive, none of us know anything about it.

Chelsi: They get all the attention, I know. A couple of other types. Other than of course beer and bread, all come from fungi, there's plenty of food sources that we can thank for fungi, but medicine as well. Penicillin is something from fungi. One of the other ones that don't get enough love, another group, is what's called the saprophytes.

Saprophytes are fungi that degrade already dead matter. We've been talking a little bit about the parasites, the bad ones, those ones are going after live matter, they cause disease, but there's actually a bunch of fungi that are literally just nature's recyclers. If we didn't have fungi, we would be up to our necks and more in woody tissue because nothing like fungi can degrade lignin, which is one of the hardest things to degrade.

Doug: When I have a stump there, and it eventually starts to rot away, no longer can I see it, but every year I get something popping up from down there, is that what's happening, or is that part of what's happening?

Chelsi: Yes, that's your little saprophyte. Yes. You can thank that little guy because, or else that stump would be there forever.

Doug: I actually was on a property the other day and they, I don't know how long ago they did this, cut down a huge tree. I saw that they had holes drilled in it, trying to get rid of the stump, and my idea was, just cover it with dirt and let nature take it. That's the best thing.

Chelsi: It is a slow process and you can think about how slow it happens is because the components of wood are so difficult to degrade. Fungi though, they don't work fast, but they're fabulous eaters, so they can eat almost anything, including radioactive material.

Doug: What?

Chelsi: Yes. There are fungi that can actually, and actually do, live in radioactive places like Chernobyl where nothing else has lived. There's fungi that can survive space-

Doug: Wow.

Chelsi: -as well. I know. There's so many cool things that fungi do.

Doug: Well, I'm going to keep you going on that because let's talk about the beauty of so many fungi. At this time of the year where I'm at in the Mid-Atlantic states, I think of the shelf mushroom that I call chicken of the woods.

Chelsi: Oh, yes.

Doug: It's so beautiful. Whenever we're talking about fungi like this, that one is edible, but you never ever eat fungi unless a scientist tells you it's okay. If you could just expand on that. I say that all the time. I can't believe it, I get people send me questions like, "Hey, is this mushroom edible?" I'm like, "What are you talking about? That thing could kill you."

Chelsi: Yes, it's so funny. I don't know what it is about humans, but it's like our always first question is, "Can I eat that?" Yes, chicken of the woods is a choice edible. The good thing about chicken of the woods is it's generally pretty easy to identify, but there are absolutely fungi that are not easy to identify where their lookalikes, for a lack of a better term, is highly poisonous. A poison from a mushroom can range anywhere from you don't feel well, you need to be hospitalized, or in some cases like the destroying angel, depending on the amount you eat, you could actually perish.

Yes, fungi, be very careful. Do not eat it unless you are 100% sure, and I always say, if you do eat it, save a little piece just in case so if you do have to go visit somebody, you can show them what you ate.

Doug: You know what, even with chicken of the woods, even though I know what it is, I always send a photograph to my local mushroom club to a scientist I know there just double checking because it can be so dangerous. Let's talk a little bit about it because I find beauty in fungi. I love when-- They're not around long usually, they don't just sprout up, but many of them have just intense colors, but also just unique shapes.

Chelsi: Oh, yes. Yes. Then I think one of the fun things is that a lot of people when they think fungi, they think mushrooms. There is an entire world of fungi that actually the majority of them don't make mushrooms. They make fruiting bodies sure, which is what a mushroom is, but they do come in all these funny little shapes. I'm going to give you an assignment. I would have you look up slime molds because, and technically they're not true fungi, but they're close enough, they are some of the funniest-looking things. They actually can move and hunt, so they can work their way around a person's garden looking for material to eat.

One of the fun things I do want to say about how fungi grow that I forgot to mention is that even mapping out, say, a city or a train network, people will use fungi, and they'll put point A, point B, and they'll inoculate point B with fungi. The growth that it takes to get to point B is what they will map cities off of because fungi are very efficient in how they move. It's actually, for example, the underground system in Tokyo was made from fungi growth. They used that as a map.

Doug: All right. Break this down for me. I'm not sure I have it. Let's just do the train line-

Chelsi: Sure.

Doug: -as an example. So they're trying to figure out where they want their train line. Why are they using fungi? Is it just shows the easiest way to get from one point to another?

Chelsi: Yes.

Doug: Oh, wow.

Chelsi: If they, say, built a model of Tokyo or whatever it might be and they need to know what's the most efficient way to get people from point A to point B, they'll use fungi and the direction that it takes. It's like basically has the crows fly, but as the mycelia growth you prefer because it will take the most effective route.

Doug: Wow. That is so cool. That's a lot of positives. Are there any other positives we need to talk about before we go on to the most famous negative fungis that get all the darn attention?

Chelsi: I think I covered what I would consider to be the highlights. I probably could keep going, but it would be more like little fun facts rather than groupings.

Doug: What is your favorite unique cool looking besides slime mold? I like it when I see it because I know what it is, but so many people don't and they freak out. I have another one to talk to you about too, but first, tell me another one that you like that's cool looking. There's one that I like and it's like a little white pipe, you know what I'm saying?

Chelsi: Oh, the ghost plant.

Doug: Yes.

Chelsi: That's technically not a fungi. Oh, you're opening a can of worms, but here we go.

[laughter] Remember how we talked about mycorrhizae and how with a symbiotic relationship between plant and fungi, they're both getting something. The ghost pipe plant is actually a plant, but it's white because it's not photosynthesizing at all. It's actually tapped into that mycorrhizal relationship, but it's not giving anything back. It's actually parasitically taking advantage of that symbiosis, so it's living off of the fungi without giving any carbohydrates. It is technically a plant, but it can only survive with fungi.

Doug: What's one that you love stumbling onto if you're out?

Chelsi: I really love what are called wood ear fungi because they look like little ears and they're kind of slimy and they usually have really cool colors. Ooh, another one is the elf cups because they actually will stain wood vibrantly green and blue. I enjoy the colors that fungi can bring to the spectrum of a forest.

Doug: That leads me to artillery fungus.

Chelsi: Oh, yes. [laughs] Who doesn't love that guy? Except for, I'm sure, people who have it growing in their gardens.

Doug: Oh, yes. Only you would love artillery fungus. These poor people, it gets up on their car, it gets up on their siding and they can't get it off. I actually have a post where I got some information from somebody and what they did to try and get this artillery fungus off their siding. Tell everybody what artillery fungus is and what it does and why you love it.

[laughter]

Chelsi: Artillery fungus, or also another common name might be the canon ball fungus, it's this little tiny saprophyte, which means it grows in mulch, so it's decaying already dead matter. It gets its name because as you can imagine, it has a spore ball that's tiny and black and it can actually eject this thing. I think I'm going to probably misquote it, but it's something like an insane velocity that it can get this thing, which is why I love it. It could project this thing for like, I don't know, almost 10 meters. I think at one point they measured it to get as far.

Unfortunately, it is a nuisance because all those tiny little black spore balls will not only get on everything, but they are almost impossible to remove. You have to mechanically scrape them off. I love it because what an interesting way to get your reproductive body out there. Plants have pollen and that's super cool, but I don't see any plant, except for maybe ferns forcefully ejecting their pollen into the air for dispersal.

Doug: For artillery fungus, could you actually see that happening or people will never see that?

Chelsi: There are videos on YouTube of it done in slow motion that I highly recommend. [laughs] No, it's not something that you walk out into your garden and suddenly you just hear [laughs]

Doug: Yes. Suddenly you're attacked by fungus.

Chelsi: No. You won't notice it until you see it.

Doug: Let's talk about some other negatives on fungal issues. We see flowering crabs, maples, all over the place, and it's disconcerting to homeowners and to tree lovers.

Chelsi: Yes. You can have a spectrum of negative fungi from, for example, the artillery fungus, which would be considered a nuisance even though it's doing good things. All the way down to fungi that can actually kill trees. Like, for example, Dutch elm disease is a fungi that is parasitically killing a tree from the inside out. Or even wood decay fungi that can cause structural hazards.

Sometimes when people see mushrooms growing on trees, their automatic reaction is that something bad is happening. In some cases it is. It's an indication of what's called rott and the structural integrity of the tree is significantly decreased. There's a spectrum. Obviously in my area, I'm mostly dealing with disease and decay because those are what we're trying to hopefully either avoid or fix after they've occurred.

Doug: Tell me a little bit about your work involved with those different issues.

Chelsi: At the core of being a technical advisor, we are essentially field diagnosticians. What that means is that when a field arborist or even a client wants a more in-depth picture about what's going on diagnostically, they might give me a call and I come out and I basically am a tree detective and I figure out what's causing this tree to decline. Things that cause diseases are one of those answers, also insects.

A lot of it will be diagnosing disease-causing fungi and bacteria and all these other things. Then one of the other things that I do as a technical advisor is what are called tree risk assessments, in which, say, you have a very large tree that's over your home and there's a mushroom growing on it, and you want to know how risky that tree is, I come out and I assess it.

Doug: Okay. Here, I'll give you an example, but you can't see it.

Chelsi: [laughter] That I can't give a risk rating. No, no.

Doug: I'm looking up at this big oak and I see lots of chicken of the woods up in a, I don't know, sunken area. I'm concerned about that. [laughs]

Chelsi: You probably should be. Chicken of the woods is while-- Though it's edible. Here's a fun thing. It's actually in two camps. It's an edible, that's a very beneficial thing for people. It's food. On the other spectrum, it is a pretty aggressive wood decay fungi that can actually create a really brittle tree.

We are generally more concerned about fungi that create brittle trees because of how easily they snap when a force is applied. Generally, chicken of the woods is not something that I'm super happy to see growing on a tree during a tree risk assessment, but obviously, tree risk assessments need to be done in person. [laughs] Other than that, I can't give you any more. [laughs]

Doug: I know. I'm just teasing you because I have a Davey arborist that does my tree risk assessments and he's looked at it. We're working on it. Let's talk a little bit about leaf diseases. In general, what I've heard is if you've got something that always has this leaf disease every year, it is best to use, in my case, it'd be an organic fungicide before you see signs of damage. Does that make sense?

Chelsi: Yes. With most diseases, the symptoms from their actual infection are often delayed after they've actually done the infecting. A great example would be if you're familiar with Rhizosphaera needle cast at all.

Doug: Yes.

Chelsi: Yes. The symptoms of that disease you will know will be very internal needle browning and shedding, and then the tree will die from the bottom up. It looks like it's infecting the older needles, but in reality, the infection occurs at bud break, but it takes two years for those symptoms to show up. They're not infecting the older needles, that's just how long it takes. With management, you need to be there before the fungi are there, which is often during bud break.

Doug: Tell me about your love of fungi. Is it a science thing? How do you get into it?

Chelsi: I'm a plant pathologist by trade and so plant pathology for me, I really came into this because I love plants and I love microbes. Plant pathology is really the marriage of those two. I've always had a huge fascination with bacteria and fungi. Then in my work that I do know, I get to play more with what I call macro fungi, like actual mushrooms. I just like you said, I appreciate them, and their beauty and all the other things that they're doing, even though most of the time, I'm dealing with the negative side effects. I like to remind people that this sucks, and I know that it sucks, but there's so many other things that fungi do.

Doug: Is there anything new that you've been working on or that's been discovered or that you're most worried about? These things come and go. I'm sure it's weather-related. Is there anything in particular that really has you worried where you're at now?

Chelsi: As far as fungal diseases, most of the fungi diseases that I'm worried about are not new. They're just more so slow-moving. Things like oak wilt, and Dutch elm disease are some of the stuff that I'm constantly making talks about, and also diagnosing. I would say, most of what I've been trying to get into is more mycorrhizal stuff because so little is known about it. That's mostly just at this point, just spreading the word about them and how they work.

You mentioned climate. Unfortunately, mycorrhizae are very, very sensitive to changes in climate. That's also something to consider. Climate will push a lot of the diseases and potentially have a detriment to a lot of the beneficials.

Doug: We've talked about this before about oak forest in general, especially here on the east. Oak wilt is breaking my heart, Chelsi, and it's not a joke. I feel that I'm going to eventually over the next 20, 30 years lose most of my oaks on my property because I have mostly oaks. I can't treat all those trees, and even cutting them down and removing them is expensive.

I'm in a quandary as to what to do, because I am having Davey come and cut one to two trees down and removing them per year. In between these forests, I've got a driveway, and that's what is helping me but it's the beetle that's eventually I think, going to end my oak forest. They're huge trees, and they are within reach of the house. I am working with my Davey team on it, but we both looked at each other like, well, you'd have to be a millionaire to treat all these trees. I'm trying to add diversity to the forest, Chelsi. [chuckles]

Chelsi: Yes. I deal with in the Midwest or Great Lakes region, oak decline, and oak wilt is an unfortunate component of that. I deal with a lot of oaks going down. A lot of these people they have 12 plus trees where it does come down to, "Okay, we need to select either A, the best candidates for management to make sure your money is actually going to have some success, and then B, there's going to be some that are just more prized for whatever reason."

It gets into almost choosing your favorite children. It hurts. Like you said, this is a succession. I always say, unfortunately, yes, that tree probably won't continue, but maybe we can make a bench or a bowl or some spoons out of it. Let's think about what's next. What would be next that you would plant?

This is something that happens. Same thing with wood decay. These are things that happen naturally in forest situations, but the difference is the perspective. It's your one oak tree that you care so much about. We try to do everything that we can but there are just some things that especially with oak wilt it's very destructive. If you have red oaks, then you have to preventatively treat them or else there's not much you can do.

Doug: I have red oaks.

[laughter]

Chelsi: Oh, no.

Doug: I asked the arborist this. I don't know if this is appropriate for you, but do you have and again, we always preface it with right tree right place but, do you have some trees in mind when you're thinking about redoing an oak forest? In my case, I'm putting in-- I love the hornbeam. I'm just trying to be more diverse. Sourwood. I'm trying to go with natives.

Chelsi: I think when I usually recommend replants, definitely I say, "Take a look around, and if you see it in your neighborhood, don't plant it." Try to be different. The other thing too, that we're starting to have to consider, though is in 10, 15 years, the shift of climate is going to be very different. Trying to get people to think maybe one or two levels lower on the hardiness zone map. For example, if you're 5A, you might want to go down to what survives best in like a six-level to plan for what eventually that tree will live in. What will it need to be able to-- It's just what would be the best treat for the future environment rather than the environment now.

Doug: Well, this is probably controversial, but as a scientist, who sees climate change happening, how do you react when you hear people that say there is no climate change? When you hear that, what do you do?

Chelsi: There's actually fewer people now so that's good. You'll get one every once in a while. I think I'll give you one instance. It is actually a sugar maple forest that was declining because unfortunately, due to climate change, and in that case, you have a frank conversation. Ultimately, it's their decision and what's what they want to believe. I did supply some papers that supported the argument, and you just, "Here's the information. I've given you everything, and you can decide what to do next." I don't try to change people's minds. I just try to educate.

Doug: You are smart Chelsi. I could just see you at a group and you're here on the corner here off the side, like somebody say something like that. If it was me, and I had your expertise, I might jump into the fray, but you're smart.

Chelsi: There's some things, like for fungi, if someone said something bad about fungi, I'm coming for them.

Doug: Let's finish up with some fun questions. Tell me about the joy you get out of your work.

Chelsi: Oh, so much joy. I think we've talked about this many times. I'm an educator at heart. I love talking to people who are engaged. Most people who own a tree are engaged in it. They want to know what could happen to it, and how can I take care of it. It's just lovely to see people have that relationship with nature because it reflects my own relationship with nature.

Doug: Tell me what being an employee-owned company does for you. What does that mean for you?

Chelsi: It's almost like in-the-words. It's, you feel a sense of pride and ownership because it's almost like you're part of the process and the decision-making a little bit with the company. You feel like your voice is heard a little bit more. I quite enjoy it. I will say I've never worked for another company. This is my first job I ever got. It'll be an interesting thing if I ever God forbid leave because the culture is quite wonderful when you're employee-owned, I believe.

[music]

Doug: All right, Chelsi. As always, wonderful information, fun to talk to you. We did not hear one of those trains coming through Chicago that we heard once in a while when I interview you, so that's a good thing, too. I appreciate your time. Thanks again. I'm sure we'll talk again soon.

Chelsi: Sounds great. Thank you.

Doug: It's always great to talk to Chelsi. It's obvious she just loves her job. Tune in every Thursday to the Talking Trees podcast from the Davey Tree Expert Company. I am your host Doug Oster. Next week, I can't wait for this, trees that are best for wet areas. It's going to be fun to talk about that. Do me a favor, subscribe to the podcast so you'll never miss an episode. As always, we'd like to remind you on the Talking Trees podcast, trees are the answer.

[00:29:12] [END OF AUDIO]