This is corn smut, a culinary valuable type of fungus. It starts life like a yeast sporidia by budding daughter cells until it finds a genetically suitable mating partner. Once it becomes dikaryotic it starts to form the fungal hypha and infects a single kernel forming what you see as a gall.
While deletirious, and often considered a blight by farmers, the immature galls can be sold for many times more than the corn if it had not been infected. They are called huitlacoche when being used as culinary, and are described as tasting sweet and savory with earthy tones.
When infecting the kernel, the corn tries to protect itself using a reactive oxygen species, that in turn is countered by the fungus’s YAP1 gene that protects it from oxidative stress. Genetic research into M. Maydis has actually worked tangible results in our ongoing fight against breast cancer!
M. Maydis is a basidiomycota or “club type” fungus, which is to say it belongs to the same order as the classic mushrooms you’re used to seeing such as fly aminita/agaric which is the inspiration for the Super Mario power up mushroom.
This fungus is also considered a model species as in it’s sporidia phase is capable of accepting gene modification.
M. Maydis is also capable of synthesizing the essential amino acid lysine, which we need but cannot produce ourselves.
So, you see, not all corn infecting funguses are bad. Some are actually really cool, and have funny names like “smut”.
Obligate parasites. Yeah I read the news.
Lol, man, I wanted to know the “street” price of a kilo (2.2 lbs).
What they taste like? Don’t say chicken.
Edit: Also, are you a mycochemigeneticist.
Lol, I know what you were after but this is shitposting and I couldn’t help butt fuck with you a little. And sadly no, my undergrad is in biology but I am more environmentally focused. I’m just your typical autistic idiot who hyper focuses on one thing for a few weeks. A few years ago that things was cultivating edible mushrooms. And to answer your question about price, they are very difficult to get ahold of fresh or dried so your only option is in brine in a can or jar. I just picked up this jar from the Bodega down the block from me for $10.
MM-mm, now that’s good huitlacoche!
It tastes like a corny mushroom. Do not try them from a jar. Those taste more like a slimy snot rag.
It’s an obligate parasite that enters the corn plant via tiny wounds when it’s the plant is small. The most common source of wounding is insect damage or wind. Sandy soil + wind creates the highest incidence. Once you find some hotspots it’s easy to find.
Cool! What is this doing in shitposting again? This should go under “cool!”, if there was such a sub.