Biological Control of Invasive Buckthorn with Native Fungi

Speaker: Ryan Franke

Ryan Franke

Our August 11th meeting will be shared remotely via Zoom.

From brewing beer to producing antibiotics, modern society relies on fungal life processes to fulfill our desires and overcome our obstacles. How about the Buckthorn problem? Can fungi help us get rid of invasive Buckthorn? This is the central question of Ryan’s research in the UMN Forest Pathology lab. Findings from the past two years of research will be presented.

Ryan Franke grew up in Eagan, MN and learned to revere the natural world at a young age. During a fall camping trip around Lake Superior in 2015, he became fascinated with fungi and shortly thereafter joined the Minnesota Mycological Society. His fascination with fungi mushroomed after joining the society, opening a gourmet mushroom cultivation business in 2017, editing the MMS newsletter from 2018-2020, and most recently joining the mycology focused Forest Pathology Lab at the UMN in 2023. Read about his research here.

Presentations are recorded and posted a few days later on the MMS YouTube channel. This meeting is free and open to the public. Members receive Zoom links on meeting announcements and reminders. Also, anyone can click on the button below and provide their contact info to be sent the Zoom link for this meeting.

If you haven’t used Zoom before and don’t want to miss anything, click on the meeting link to download Zoom and familiarize yourself with it at least 15 minutes prior to the meeting.

How to join a Zoom meeting – You do not need a Zoom account, but you will need the Zoom app installed on your desktop or mobile device. You can either download the Zoom app in advance here. Or, you will be automatically prompted to download and install the Zoom app when you click on a meeting link for the first time. You can also join a test meeting at any time at https://zoom.us/test.  Watch a video on how to join a Zoom meeting here.