mushroom cultivation

conservation mycology

ethnomycology

Caine Barlow is a mycologist, fungi educator, ethnobotanist, independent researcher, and Science Writer based in Melbourne, Australia.  He gives regular talks on mycology, fungi conservation, and teaches gourmet mushroom cultivation.  He is a member of the Australian organisations Entheogenesis Australis, The PATCH, and is a co-founder of The Entheome Foundation.

Caine is a self-taught forager and mushroom cultivator. He started foraging for mushrooms in the forests around kunanyi (Mt. Wellington) in southern lutruwita (Tasmania) in the early 1990's, learning from mycology texts in the University of Tasmania science library. He started cultivating gourmet fungi in the mid-2000’s. To expand on his hands-on experience with fungi, he did a Bachelor of Science at the University of Tasmania, focussing on plant science, microbiology, and organic chemistry, graduating in 2012. In 2019 Caine completed a Master of Science at the University of Melbourne, where his research project was based on Conservation Mycology.

Caine also has a Certificate II in Horticulture, and as a long-time practitioner of Permaculture completed a PDC in 2020 to bring together both the academic study of fungi and plants, and the hands-on practical application.

In addition to fungi, Caine has had a long term interest in ethnobotany, ethnobotanical literature,  and growing medicinal plants - in particular Cacti and Acacias. He has written for DoubleBlind, ThirdWave, Healing Maps, MicroDose, and Entheogenesis Australis. Caine is a “Trusted Identifier” on The Shroomery, and a moderator on many Facebook fungi groups. Caine posts regularly on his Instagram, @guerrillamycology, sharing adventures from cultivation, foraging, and ethnomycology, to interesting observations from his home lab.