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Phenology with local naturalist Larry Weber every Friday morning at 8:20 on Northland Morning.

Green Visions: Harvesting Chaga Fungus Helps the Trees, at Least

Andrew Miller

If you wait long enough, some fads come back around.

Take chaga fungus, for instance.  It's one of those folk medicine remedies that have been used in Russia and other Northern European climes for centuries but that modern-day purveyors have to be careful to say "isn't intended to diagnose, treat or cure disease."

The thing is, chaga fungus grows on birch trees and will kill them.  So harvesting it is good for the birches, at least.

Lisa Johnson started her broadcast career anchoring the television news at her high school and spinning country music at KWWK/KOLM Radio in Rochester, Minnesota. She was a reporter and news anchor at KTHI in Fargo, ND (not to mention the host of a children's program called "Lisa's Lane") and a radio reporter and anchor in Moorhead, Bismarck, Wahpeton and Fergus Falls.Since 1991, she has hosted Northland Morning on KUMD. One of the best parts of her job includes "paying it forward" by mentoring upcoming journalists and broadcasters on the student news team that helps produce Northland Morning. She also loves introducing the different people she meets in her job to one another, helping to forge new "community connections" and partnerships.Lisa has amassed a book collection weighing over two tons, and she enjoys reading, photography, volunteering with Animal Allies Humane Society and fantasizing about farmland. She goes to bed at 8pm, long before her daughter, two cats, or three dogs.