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Health & Safety: Fungus on Wood

A

Andy Kev.

Nordic Pine
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I recently had to store some wood in a friend's damp garage while I was moving house. A couple of bits of rough sawn European walnut have developed a thin surface coating of what I can only describe as fungal rosettes. They are pale green to grey in colour.

One hears a lot of the danger of breathing in fungal spores in dust, so my instinct is to take the boards outside, clamp them to my saw horses and take a scrub plane to the surface (which I'd have to do anyway to prepare the boards). Does that add up to adequate safety measures or is there more I should do?
 
I saw a long clip by a professor of micro-biology who was also a keen woodworker, speaking to a bunch of American woodworkers. She said that the danger of fungus in/on wood is massively over-stated, and that there are fungal spores in every breath we take. I would wipe the surface down with a damp cloth, and not worry too much.
 
100% agree. Anyone who works in a garden, or studies trees at close quarters, is exposed to fungal spores constantly. Trees for example are connected to each other via a vast and complex underground fungal network in ways that we still don't properly understand. Visible surface presence is literally the tip of the iceberg.
 
Thanks for the replies. I’m less concerned after reading them. I’m not given to hypochondria, nor am I by nature overly cautious but I thought it better to ask.
 
Andy Kev.":2gqnzafv said:
Thanks for the replies. I’m less concerned after reading them. I’m not given to hypochondria, nor am I by nature overly cautious but I thought it better to ask.
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You were right in asking about anything you are unsure of, mark of competence in my opinion.
Lots of spores from the same source in an enclosed space are an entirely different matter.
 
Whilst I agree with Mike's observation on inhaled atmospheric spore concentrations, I would take slight issue with you Mike (and by remove, with your prof source) on concentration of same in the outside atmosphere, versus an enclosed workshop, where you are flagellating the surface of the spore bodies. I would absolutely like to see your source clip Mike, and am perfectly prepared to admit over-caution or wrong thinking.

Secondly, Adrian, your post:

100% agree. Anyone who works in a garden, or studies trees at close quarters, is exposed to fungal spores constantly. Trees for example are connected to each other via a vast and complex underground fungal network in ways that we still don't properly understand. Visible surface presence is literally the tip of the iceberg.
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Conflates the issue slightly. Spores are haploid reproductive bodies, designed (evolved) to be desiccated, and wind-borne. The (sometimes) diploid mycelia underground (and the exudate from them) are more aqueous or mucilaginous and - as recent research now shows - are much more to do with sharing resources and communication than we once realised.

Ergo, spores are much more likely to lead to scenarios like 'Farmers' Lung' whereas mycelial exudate has the potential more dermatitis/urticarial in nature.

I am not preaching, but my Tutor at Uni was a mycologist and he and I had extended chats about moulds in general and ergot, etc in particular, over four years.
 
Thanks Sam. Always happy to learn more.

It's a very interesting area I think. I've read some of the recent research on tree and plant communications in this way. Some tomes suggest that fungal growth visible on bark and around roots is directly linked.

However, I've not studied it at all and as a lifelong sufferer from asthma, eczema and season long hayfever, I tend to be pretty careful anyway. Generally if wood needs cleaning off (I handle green oak from time to time for example) I tend to do it outside.
 
Some tomes suggest that fungal growth visible on bark and around roots is directly linked.
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That makes complete sense Adrian. Fruiting bodies on the trunks are what you see when the mycelial body elsewhere inside the tree wants to reproduce. Mushrooms are the fruiting bodies for soil-based fungi.

The mycorrhizae - intimate relationships between mycelia and plant rootlets - are old news, we've known about them for well over 50 years; what is new is the extent to which they can be used as a transit system, tree-to-tree. This review article is fairly representative of present thinking:

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10 ... 35299/full

I haven't got to the bottom of Mike.G's video, though I suspect it might have been given by one Linda Chalker. Hopefully, Mike will unearth the original.
 
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