Today on the Mushroom Hour Podcast we are honored to be joined by Piotr Zieba, professor’s assistant at the University of Agriculture in Krakow, Poland. Piotr works with gourmet and medical mushrooms and his journey started on Faculty of Biotechnology and Horticulture. During his bioengineering studies he found out that nobody was doing research on mushrooms. So, Piotr took matters into his own hands and organized a Student Science program to start to cultivating mushrooms. At this point in his career, Piotr has completed a master thesis about oyster mushrooms, coauthored 11 scientific papers and is now finishing PhD studies. His work focuses on different properties of mycelium from in vitro culture and fruiting bodies, but also focuses on supplementation of mushroom substrate with novel bio-materials. Working on a multidisciplinary science team, Piotr is currently pursuing all kinds of exciting work on mushrooms from attempting to cultivate wild mushrooms, using nontypical agriculture and food waste in mushroom cultivation and using waste mushroom substrate as fertilizer. His passion for mycology is palpable, and along with a great team of professors, doctors and students he is working to learn everything he can for the glory of mushrooms.   TOPICS COVERED:   Childhood in Nature Picking Mushrooms   University of Agriculture Krakow   Visions of a Mushroom Cultivating Future in Poland   Experiments with Substrate   Nutritional Profiles of Mushrooms Grown on Different Substrates   Contamination Learning Curve   Mycelium vs Fruiting Body Nutritional Compounds   Mapping Nutrition Profiles with Differing Growth Parameters   Isolating and Cultivating Wild Fungi   Impact of Piotr’s Research on his University   Advice for Mushroom Cultivators   Downstream Applications of Spent Mushroom Substrate   Future Cultivation Tech – Ozone Sterilization   EPISODE RESOURCES:   Poland Fungi IG: https://www.instagram.com/polandfungi/   Piotr Zieba Researchgate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Zieba-Piotr   University of Agriculture in Krakow: https://en.urk.edu.pl/   Marasmius alliaceus (Fungus): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycetinis_alliaceus   Pleurotus ostreatus (Fungus): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleurotus_ostreatus