Speaker expertise

Caine Barlow is a fungi educator who has been cultivating and studying fungi for 14 years. In 2019 he completed a Master's degree where his research project was to predict a preliminary conservation status for many Australian fungi. As a fungi educator, he is passionate about encouraging people to see fungi in a new light by demonstrating how easy they are to grow in kitchen and garden environments. He likes to inspire a sense of creativity in the cloning and propagation of mycelium, experimentation with different substrates, and how to hack together equipment. Through exploring the forests of Far South Tasmania, Caine's interest in fungi evolved from foraging to learning how to culture native species for conservation, and on to cultivating a variety of culinary and medicinal species. Then to further studies into mycorrhizal fungi, mycoremediation, and mycorestoration. When not growing fungi, Caine volunteers his time with Entheogenesis Australis, MYCOmmunity Applied Mycology, and the Australian Psychedelic Society. He writes for DoubleBlind and is also a regular contributor, “trusted identifier” and administrator on a variety of fungi oriented website forums and facebook groups. Caine has an Instagram account "Guerrilla Mycology” where he blogs about his cultivation techniques and the ethnomycology of fungi he finds in the field.