Ep 42: Fun with Fungi - with Tradd Cotter from Mushroom Mountain

Listen as we discuss Mushroom Mountain, which Tradd Cotter owns and operates with his wife Olga, to explore applications in various industries including food production, mycoremediation of environmental pollutants, and natural alternatives to chemical pesticides.

About Tradd:
Tradd Cotter is a microbiologist, professional mycologist, and organic gardener, who has been tissue culturing, collecting native fungi in the Southeast, and cultivating both commercially and experimentally for more than twenty-two years. In 1996 he founded Mushroom Mountain, which he owns and operates with his wife, Olga, to explore applications for mushrooms in various industries and currently maintains over 200 species of fungi for food production, mycoremediation of environmental pollutants, and natural alternatives to chemical pesticides.

In 2014 Tradd published the best-selling book Organic Mushroom Farming and Mycoremediation (2014), that is still one of the top ten releases with the publisher, Chelsea Green. Tradd has won numerous awards for his work including the prestigious Clemson University Entrepreneur of the Year Award (2013), the EPA GRO-U Fellowship Award (2011), and an expert lecturer on all topics related to fungi in agriculture and medicine.

His primary interest is in low-tech and no-tech cultivation strategies so that anyone can grow mushrooms on just about anything, anywhere in the world. Mushroom Mountain is currently expanding to 42,000 square feet of laboratory and research space near Greenville, South Carolina, to accommodate commercial production, as well as mycoremediation projects. In 2018 Mushroom Mountain started a daughter company, MYCOMATRIX, that develops novel medicinal extracts for consumers and cobranding into consumer products. Currently the Cotters have opened Blue Portal, a psilocybin research and mediated session center, that is available in Jamaica and soon Costa Rica. Tradd, Olga, and their daughter, Heidi, live in Liberty, South Carolina.

Links:
Website: https://mushroommountain.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MushroomMountainFarm/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sporeprints/