We know each monsoon bring rains, humidity and moulds caused by excessive moisture in the air.
If you have found cottony growth on a damp wall or food at your home in Urbania, those are moulds, a sign of fungal growth. Fungi, including yeast, moulds and mushrooms.are biologically important microscopic organisms in a kingdom different from plants and animals.
Fungi are more common in rains as moisture favours fungal development. Fungi are nature’s recyclers that feed on dead organic matter to release nutrients for other organisms. As saprophytes, fungi have an important role in natural nutrient cycles of feed on decaying matter.
Fungi hyphae are thread-like growth that network to become visible mycelium resembling thin fibres.
Mushrooms are fungal fruiting bodies to release spores into the air for multiplication. Using rain cues, fungi below soil sprout mushrooms which appear and aerially disperse spores to spread a colony.
In the past two weeks, I have spotted mushrooms on my morning walks at Urbania, as expected at the start of rains each monsoon.
The most memorable sight was a large number of mushrooms in the grass beneath copper pod trees in front of Aurelia. Those groups of mushrooms made for great pictures on the day of their appearance. As mushrooms delicate and short-lived, you can’t see them near Aurelia now and have to wait for the next mushroom bloom at Urbania.
This issue of our newsletter is about mushrooms, where you can spot them at Urbania and dealing with fungi at your home.
Any place with plants supports mushrooms, and Urbania’s gardeners have found mushrooms growing in pots at their balcony. The certain chance of mushroom spotting is in ideal conditions I describe below.
You can see mushrooms starting with annual monsoon rains because fungal colonies in soil perceive moisture and develop mushrooms. Sometimes you may find mushrooms spring from the ground in dry weather too when watering plants moistens the soil and induces mushrooms.
Grass and mushrooms seem to have a thing going for them. Most mushrooms you spot at Urbania are likely to sprout from below grass and very visible as white mushrooms are a good contrast to green grass. You may find some mushrooms sprout even in the soil below trees or shrubs or even small-plants like herbs.
Buffalo grass on the DP Road islands from Rabodi to Azziano is where I have found most mushrooms in one area during my four years at Urbania.
Urban Farming Zone has extensive grass planting and also supports mushrooms each year.
The grass below coconut trees at Azziano Phase II annually has mushroom sprouts which I have seen every year from 2018 to 2020.
One of my surprise discoveries while exploring Urbania has been finding another type of fungi in the township. On my morning walk at the Festival Plaza last week I found an unusual sight of a tree trunk full of bracket-fungi.
Bracket-fungi also called shelf-fungi, are also fungal fruiting bodies that appear as brackets or shelves on living or dead wood. They may appear in series and make quite a sight as you may find entire tree trunk covered along its length with bracket fungi growing in a vertical line. Some bracket fungi appear in a clump like mushrooms and others in horizontal rows.
Bracket fungi are differently coloured, and the one I saw at Festival Plaza was cream and brown though even white ones are common too. I could manage to click pictures through the opening in the fence next to which I found the bracket fungi.
You can find bracket fungi on decaying wood anywhere and rarely in soil too. Humid places favour fungi so either rainfall or high humidity in air favour generation of bracket fungi. Bracket fungi are important recyclers of wood in forests and release nutrients and carbon-dioxide from the wood.
The last time I saw a very large number of bracket fungi was at Ganapatipule last November during our trip there. While walking on the parikrama of the Ganapatipule temple, I found a large collection of bracket fungi. During your visit to any place along the Konkan coast, you have a good chance of sighting wooden logs lined with bracket fungi.
Fungi are very tricky to deal with as they grow rapidly on any wet surface including clothes, footwear, furniture or food.
In June 2020, we are all amid hyper-sanitization drives in response to COVID-19. As for sanitizing against fungi at home, you are best off focusing on humidity and not on disinfectants to control fungal growth.
High humidity favours fungal development, so ensure that your home is well-ventilated. That is the most important and highly effective means to deal with fungi.
Fungi grew on wet clothes and footwear worn in rains and left for washing or drying.
Squeeze out the moisture from wet clothes if you are keeping them overnight for washing. As for leather shoes and sandals, wipe them dry and leave them in an airy place to prevent mould growth on them. Keeping cupboards open helps to reduce fungal growth in enclosed spaces.
Softer fruits like mango, muskmelon, bananas and chikoos are highly prone to spoilage by fungi.
Vegetables inside a refrigerator are safer from rotting as a lower temperature is unfavourable to fungi.
Two weeks ago, I had written about residents of Urbania living on the highest floors of buildings.
At the higher floors of our township, the apartments get higher moisture ingress due to cloud movement and residents in such homes should take extra caution to fight fungi.
Running air conditioners can help in reducing moisture in the air, but that is a costly option. In closets, you can keep bags of water-absorbing silica gel that is blue when dry and white after absorbing moisture. You can re-dry wet and white silica gel in a Tawa over a light flame to release the moisture the silica had absorbed and re-use it.
Happy mushroom spotting and mould-proofing your home this monsoon at Urbania.
