#mycoremediation

[lenrosen]

Mycelium May Be The Next Big Technology Thing

[leafonsidewalk]

Mushrooms Help Clean up Toxic Waste

Through a process called mycoremediation, mushrooms can be used to remove chemicals from the soil and heavy metals from water through their mycelium (one of nature’s most resilient living organisms, fire-resistant, water-retardant, vegetative part of a fungus). Research suggests that mushrooms can convert pesticides and herbicides to less harmful compounds, remove heavy metals from brownfield sites (land that was once used for industry and now lies useless), and break down plastic. The main idea of mycoremediation is to use a fungi’s natural decomposition abilities to restore and regenerate land. With fire return intervals becoming increasingly shorter and fire severity growing more intense, ecologists have started to use mushrooms to repair severely scorched soil. 

Most of the breakdown of toxins/waste takes place before the fruiting body is formed.

The waste is typically fully absorbed by the fungus within a few weeks. The enzymes produced by a mushroom are able to break down a lot of different pollutants and the mycelia (mycelium plural) ‘digest’ the surface they grow on and convert it into nutrients and possibly edible mushrooms. Some species of fungi are being “trained” in labs to digest things like polypropylene face masks and plastic gloves. 

Mushrooms have been used to clean up oil spills in the Amazon, boat fuel pollution in Denmark, contaminated soil in New Zealand, and PCBs in the Spokane River. Mycoremediation is a natural, more gentle, and possibly cheaper alternative to the traditional “scrape and burn” approach towards environmental cleanup (where the contaminated soil is dug up and incinerated). The traditional method can remove potentially fertile soil but mycoremediation can help clean up the toxic soil while also improving soil fertility. 

Now the big question: if mycoremediation is so great, why don’t we see more of it on a larger scale?

Federal regulations require a 100% removal of the targeted contaminants within a short period of time, but we currently don’t know how effective the breakdown is when using fungi, and the speed of it. Also, each biohazard site may require a customized treatment; how a mushroom reacts to the site depends on the species, the contaminants present, and the local growing conditions. There’s also not much investment and funding in this area of science and biology, causing many scientists to seek other areas of work. 

Sources: Mushrooms Clean Up Our Toxic Messes - resilience, Mushrooms Clean Up Toxic Mess, Including Plastic. So Why Aren’t They Used More? - YES! Magazine (yesmagazine.org), Mycoremediation: How Fungi Can Repair Our Land | Office of Sustainability - Student Blog (usfca.edu)

[chicuahtliteotl]

We started a secondary milpa, much smaller one between several established Apple, pear and plum trees.

Here's a rough break down how I began to prepare our farm for farming and remediation work.

If you want scale of size of our farm, we're working with 2.6 ish acres of land.

I've been able to identify majority of Contamination on here, mixture of pesticides, insectides, rat poison, hydrocarbons, burned plastic waste, etc.

So any places where motorized vehicles would drive over, park, or used would be hydrocarbon source. While soil by and around sheds where chemicals are stored is another example.

Soil tests can be great boon for when you divide up the individual fields to make it easier to categorize safe to farm, to what needs X amount of time of remediation work to be safe to use for food.

Further you should identify where water runs and pools to as this will tell you where containments wash off to.

Now identify as much as you can of the existing flora and fauna life there currently.

When you look at flora also good idea to check studies for any of these being used for phytoremediation.

Soil quality can be worked with regardless of state. Hard compact or soil crusted soil requires combination of solutions, that aren't simply soak in water and hope for the best.

Typically you need to first break up the soil then keep it covered, easiest way to do this is if you have tons of yard waste from selective clearing of brush or what ever, then it's best to spread and pile then compact loosely over the soil.

This way we can start creating barriers to help retain moisture and start regrowing a microbiome that can further make soil more culpable to retain life.

Please stop killing trees that you feel aren't vibing with farm esthetic, if it's invasive it has to go, but if it's not, then there's numerous ways to train tree branches to grow away from power lines, houses, etc. Trimming and pruning where necessary isn't what I'm refering to when I say killing btw lol.

One more thing, if you really must have any sort of potential invasive plants, please learn how to isolate and prevent methods for escape because even in green houses, many invasive plants escape fairly easily.

Do activism with informing your local nurseries and plant centers about invasives they may be carrying. Other wise people may unknowingly keep buying what they presume is fine to plant without isolating.

Water conservation wise, hoses and watering systems have to be looked at for the most effective solutions to both ensure, water is seeping deep into the ground and not surface evaporating.

There's drip/seep hoses which is what we use at times. It's also best to water hour before or during sunrise.

Dew nets are also great idea, they're usually thin wax coated cotton mesh nets that hang over the plants to condensate the morning dew and fog onto them to replace the need for misting to help off set mid day sun burn to plants

I am strong proponent to avoiding using plastic cord for weed eaters and prefer metal blades to not have micro plastics shotgun blasted across my fields.

Look up burn permits, controlled burning and other aspects of fire control incase you have forest line in your area of residing.

There exists organizations and collective groups that train people on prescribed fire burns as well fire management techniques. Best to look into indigenous ran groups for these as well

If you're using well water, look up how the water systems in the area work and how they're impacted by drought. Also how they replenish.

If you're running a septic system look into proper microremediating solutions to supplement them, avoid the generic and flashy looking ones, find properly documented and insure it's water system safe as some may include non biodegradable or additives that may not be safe for water systems.

The reason we want to inoculate the hell out of your septic system is that having an active microbiome allows the waste sludge to be more readily broken so if it were to leak into water systems, it is at least not as destructive in way that will trigger algae blooms.

It also makes management of cleaning and emptying easier due to the various biofilms and lipid consuming bacterias.

It also helps sequestration of heavy metals, medications, etc issue as well that may have gotten flush.

[ketrinadrawsalot]

Fungi February: The oyster mushroom is a popular edible mushroom, and it's cultivated worldwide due to its ability to grow in a variety of substrates and its robustness. It also has the potential to decontaminate polluted soil, a process called mycoremediation.

Disclaimer: Don’t rely on pictures of cute mushrooms with eyes to accurately identify edible mushrooms. At best the wrong one will taste bad, at worst it’ll be deadly!

[whatifsandspheres]

I still generally think that a stable culture of a fungi like oyster mushrooms could do the job more practically. The concept design is great. I like the aesthetic and how palatable it seems visually in comparison. I've seen people complain and get grossed out by oyster mushrooms buttoning or when the batch gets contaminated by mold and fails. Still, natural oyster mushroom systems designed with the right proportions and materials would seem more practical to me. The production of agar is a bit of a longer supply and industry chain than what it would take to grow oysters fully. I also generally think that it would be unlikely those little agar pods would fully digest plastics. The UV degradation, scrap size, and type of plastic all change how well and how likely the particular strain can or even would want to digest it. By keeping those scraps in a separate container where the mycellium can fully digest it at whatever pace and degree it desires while producing fruiting bodies/mushrooms out a different surface-- I just think it's safer and more pure to the essence and function of what a fungi can do for filtration and conversion. I still generally think that a stable culture of a fungi like oyster mushrooms could do the job more practically. The concept design is great. I like the aesthetic and how palatable it seems visually in comparison. I've seen people complain and get grossed out by oyster mushrooms buttoning or when the batch gets contaminated by mold and fails. Still, natural oyster mushroom systems designed with the right proportions and materials would seem more practical to me. The production of agar is a bit of a longer supply and industry chain than what it would take to grow oysters fully. I also generally think that it would be unlikely those little agar pods would fully digest plastics. The UV degradation, scrap size, and type of plastic all change how well and how likely the particular strain can or even would want to digest it. By keeping those scraps in a separate container where the mycellium can fully digest it at whatever pace and degree it desires while producing fruiting bodies/mushrooms out a different surface-- I just think it's safer and more pure to the essence and function of what a fungi can do for filtration and conversion. [http://www.livinstudio.com/fungi-mutarium]

FUNGI MUTARIUM

GROWING FOOD ON TOXIC WASTE

Livin Studio has, in collaboration with Utrecht University, developed a novel fungi food product grown on (plastic) waste, a prototype to grow it and culinary tools to eat it. Please go to FUNGI CUTLERY to explore our culinary tools developed throughout this project.

Fungi Mutarium is a prototype that grows edible fungal biomass, mainly the mycelium, as a novel food product. Fungi is cultivated on specifically designed agar shapes that the designers called “FU”.  Agar is a seaweed based gelatin substitute and acts, mixed with starch and sugar, as a nutrient base for the fungi. The “FUs” are filled with plastics. The fungi is then inserted, it digests the plastic and overgrows the whole substrate. The shape of the “FU” is designed so that it holds the plastic and to offer the fungi a lot of surface to grow on.

Its shape has been developed inspired by mushrooms and other plants in nature. The user should be reminded of harvesting mushrooms in the wild when harvesting the “FUs”.

[momo-t-daye]

For Unofficial Snapetober 2023 prompt "Mushroom"

Mycoremediation is pretty fascinating work, fungi are capable of amazing (and terrifying) feats of digestion! I imagine mushrooms might also be quite capable of bioaccumulating magical energies, sometimes getting so overwhelmingly magical that a ring of them might spontaneously disapparate an unwary wizard without the least concern about splinching the victim. Mycophobia seems to be relatively common in England (or perhaps I just read too much Agatha Christie as a kid), so perhaps that too spills over into the wizarding world and leads to certain dunderhead Gryffindors suspecting deadly disaster from every shiitake and hoping for hallucinations from the humble portobello.

[panthertown]

I have allocated some of my pitiful bank account for Dumb Ray Purchases. 1) perfume 2) deftones tickets and 3) a bunch of mushroom spawn. Now I have to stop spending money on wants, but if that series of purchases doesn't sum me up idk what would

I've been sawing up downed hardwood trees in the neighborhood and I have a truly fucking insane amount of primo hardwood at my disposal. I got a bunch of shiitake and lions mane plug spawn. I'll have a work party to get it done, have a big ol bonfire and feed everyone and send them off with a mushroom log. I was invited to a party like that once, but my bf's roommate didn't realize the log beside the driveway was a ~special log~ and he put it in the firepit lol.

I also ordered some oyster sawdust spawn bc Pleurota species are apparently great bioaccumulators, and I have a shitload of pressure-treated scrap wood laying around from various construction and landscaping jobs. I have a special compost pile near some bioaccumulators in my yard and I want to see if I can really remove heavy metals from the soil on a personal scale.

I applied for Field and Forest's citizen science project to see if they'll help me do some mycoremediation mutual aid. If they'd be willing to subsidize the mushroom spawn, I have the space to do some pretty cool waste-reduction shit in my neighborhood. Might even be able to make it scalable. Our whole region is full of toxic and condemned areas rn, so even if this tiny block could keep our waste out of the landfill, that would be something.

[anipgarden]

Fun notes from Hellstrip Gardening by Evelyn J. Hadden

I’d mentioned in my liveblogging notes that I’d share the cool stuff I learned/found interesting but my notes quickly got Very Long so they’re now their own post. Seeing as this is what I personally found noteworthy, I definitely encourage people read the book for themselves—you might find value in a place I looked over!

Working with Poor Soil

- Use plants that thrive in less than ideal soil

- Grow herbs 👀 many common perennial herbs like thyme, sage, and oregano prefer nutrient-poor soil and dry conditions make them more flavorful. BUT get your soil tested first. Nitrogen fixers will improve poor soils and manage fine on their own, like false indigo. Flax, penstemons, and salvias are plants that are well adapted to lean growing conditions. I found this interesting because whenever I plant salvias in my garden I give them Scoops of Compost but I guess its not needed lol.

- Deep rooted prairie grasses and flowers can withstand the extremes of clay soil flipping between too wet and too dry. Some sturdy taprooted plants can break through compacted soil.

- If your soil is BAD bad then grow in containers and/or raised beds! It’ll be less costly than trying to improve a huge swath of shitty soil on your own. They’ll also provide textural interest to the landscape.

- Use a fork or pitchfork to improve compacted soil, or a broad-fork. Near tree roots, try pushing a stick/stake/rigid object into the ground and then remove it to make holes where water and organic matter can enter.

- To boost fertility quickly, add dehydrated manure, leaf mold, mushroom compost, alfalfa pellets, or garden compost. I had no idea what an alfalfa pellet was before this.

- Grow annuals for a year, cut them off at the ground level in fall, and leave the roots to decay in place. Plants with big taproots will also help break up soil. Letting roots rot in place create channels of organic matter to aerate soil, hold water, and hold nutrients.

- Sheet mulch

- When it comes to contaminated soils, you can remove the top layer of soil and replace it with good soil, or add the fresh soil on top in raised beds or mounded into berms. If you aren’t in a hurry, certain plants and fungi can be used to phytoremediate or mycoremediate the soil. They remove contaminants and store them in their tissues—you have to remove and dispose of them after though.

- Sunflowers remove lead from soil and store it in their tissues. Increasing their potassium levels increases their effectiveness for this. Cut plants after the growing season and dispose as hazardous waste. Good news! According to this book, the lead and other toxins don’t really accumulate in the seeds, so its safe for seed-eating birds. And since its stored in tissues idk if it’d affect pollinators either?

- Cover bare soil under the phytoremediating plants with a thick mulch or dense ground-covers. For easy living mulch, the book suggests Dutch white clover, annual sweet alyssum, or johnny jump-ups.

- Phytoremediation and mycoremediation require a lot more patience than just removing and replacing soil. It can take a decade or longer, depending on the situation. Definitely test the soil before you use it for other purposes, even if you’ve been phytoremediating.

Working with Laws and Covenants

- Know what the regulations are. This can include what trees are and aren’t allowed to be planted on roadsides, if trees are allowed in strips of certain widths, plant height at intersections, etc. However its also possible that the city will plant a tree for you if its on their list and you qualify, saving you money.

- When confronting a restrictive regulation (esp if written decades ago) whether its from an HOA or a city ordinance, don’t assume it can’t be revised, varied, or taken out entirely after some prompting. Have a civil conversation about it, draw up a plan or describe your garden plan, maybe be ready to make a formal presentation.

- You’ll have more luck if you come to the bargaining table prepared to and willing to compromise, take feedback, address concerns with facts and examples. Offer to meet again after the landscape is in place. Honestly I find this point interesting because the mindset of a lot of people frequently is ‘ask forgiveness not permission don’t ask and fight them if they get pissed’ but also in some situations asking cordially can get the results you want more painlessly. (That being said if lawn lovers dig in their heels maybe then its time to rally the forces and protest it but yknow cross that bridge when you get there I guess)

- Know the applicable laws. Some states (the book lists Colorado, Texas, California, Nevada, and Florida) hqve laws preventing HOAs from prohibiting xeriscaping.

- When proposing/fighting for your garden, focus on practical benefits that are easier to quantify and communicate than emotions and personal values. An HOA might not necessarily care about pollinator habitat, but they might be more understanding of ‘reducing water runoff, erosion control, lower energy use, less water needs, and no noisy mowers and blowers to bother neighbors with and spend money maintaining.’ Assigning dollar values to the garden will help communicate other positives—even if its not your main focus. Speak to them in their language, not necessarily your own.

- Show pictures of examples! If there’s a similar garden elsewhere in town, tell them where they can find it to see for themselves that it Works and Looks Great. Show them that others are doing this kind of stuff and it’ll adjust their view on ‘normal’ and ‘acceptable’ landscaping choices.

- Consider adding barriers to your beds and paths to help neighbors see that it’s ‘managed’ and actively cared for/enjoyed. Including a path and maybe a bench or some chairs will help it read as more Orderly. Wider paths will also alleviate fears about ticks, snakes, etc.

- If your neighbors aren’t crazy about a meadow garden, a no-mow lawn or groundcovers can give the look and feel of a lawn without being lawn if compromising is needed.

- Get a garden club or other local group to back you up. If there isn’t one already 👀 make one.

Living with Vehicles

- Sometimes if you garden close to the road cars might accidentally drive over parts of it, especially if parking. Put plants that are more easily replaceable on the forefront, and don’t forget to aerate the compacted soil afterwards.

- You could also put in a low fence/wall, a row of rocks, prickly plants or shrubs, or brightly colored taller plants to make the garden More Obvious and Less Drive-On-Able. If it keeps happening maybe request a cautionary sign or speed bump be added, or that a visibility barrier be removed.

- If there’s part of the garden you wanna save for occasional driving/parking, use plants that can be mowed when needed, or install permeable pavement/gravel/driving strips through a low ground cover planting. You can add a barrier that can either be mowed down or moved when that area’s not being used.

- If you have a Hellstrip hellstrip (which this book ends up talking a lot about Total Lawn Transformations but there’s still a lot of hellstrip advice too) then the combo of asphalt on one side and sidewalk on the other is gonna make a heat island. Find plants that like the heat! Use that strip to extend your growing season for warmth loving annuals or even for edible plants like tomatoes, peppers, squash, and melons! BUT get your soil tested before you do that.

- Alternatively you could plant trees to help shade the area and cool it down

- MULCH

- You can plant things to help muffle the sounds smells and other effects of traffic, winds, and passerby. You’ll want a four season barrier for this—plant a variety of things that’ll either stay green and leafed up in Winter or at least add visual interest.

Living with Wildlife

- So apparently geese like to eat the blades of grass lawns??? I thought they were eating bugs IN the grass, not the grass itself. Anyways they especially love eating fresh grass in view of a shoreline so you could add a 20 foot wide buffer of tall plants between the lawn and the shore if you don’t wanna deal with Goose Poop

- Mosquitoes lay eggs in standing water but apparently can also lay eggs in really wet dirt which I DID NOT know so even a leaky faucet onto some dirt can cause issues with mosquitoes.

- According to the book, humans don’t tend to notice damage to leaves until it surpasses ~10%, and don’t notice a particular kind of insect until its population surpasses a certain number of individuals. So instead of trying to eliminate all leaf-eating bugs, aim to control their populations so the damage isn’t noticeable to you and the insect predators will remain in the landscape and continue controlling said population. However, I took note because hey if you plant host plants and either have so many of them or manage to sneak them into so many different places that the leaf damage becomes Barely Noticeable…. Idk that just feels like a good thing to take note of for Sneaky Pollinator Gardening purposes.

- In areas prone to ticks, make your paths wide enough to pass through without touching foliage. Also having other animals around can minimize exposure—pheasants, chickens, and guinea fowl actively seek and eat ticks while possums and raccoons attract them and kill them while grooming. HOWEVER. Mice and deer can be sources of tick reproduction.

- Diverse plantings can limit damage from both insect herbivores as well as larger herbivores like rabbits, deer, and birds. These animals are generalists but may focus on specific favorites, so a mixed variety might get nibbled a little but mostly left alone.

- As a general rule, herbivores are attracted to nitrogen content in foliage, plants kept well watered, and new growth. Pampered plants are more appealing.

- Planting favorites like clover or alfalfa in specific areas may keep herbivores from finding (or at least encourage them to ignore) other areas like a veggie garden. A mulberry tree may make birds ignore your other fruits. A well placed shrub can host a rabbit nest instead of the underside of a deck. Piling ripe seed heads of grasses and flowers alongside an alley or generally away from your house can lure mice away from said house (and possibly expose them to more predators along the way)

- Vertical gardens, cold frames, hoop houses, and green houses can protect edible plants from herbivores

- Maintaining an excessively tidy lawn is a high effort way to avoid contact with particular local species (ticks, snakes, black widows, scorpions, etc.) Gaining more knowledge might help find easier ways to avoid the animal and give more peace of mind. Slight modifications could keep the animal out of your immediate environment. Its possible they aren’t even interested. (This feels fantastic but I feel like the last time I tried to read up on ‘how to keep snakes away from house/out of garden’ the results were basically Dont Have A Garden And Dont Go Outside so)

- I now want a garden toad friend time to find a broken pot to put upside down in the garden

- Early spring bulbs like low iris, species tulips, hyacinths, and crocus will supply nectar at a highly valuable time of year, attracting pollinators to the garden.

- Cleaning up fallen leaves destroys butterflies overwintering under plants.

- Birds will be lured in by the sound of moving water.

- Include prickly shrubs and thorned trees to help give birds a hiding space from predators like hawks or urban cats. Just keep thorny branches out of pathways.

Living with Road Maintenance and Utilities

- If you live in a place where roads are sanded or salted in winter, try to find salt-tolerant plants for your area. To protect curbsides from water logging and salt buildup, slope the ground towards the road/path. Direct salt-laden runoff into a seasonal stream or rain garden planted with salt-resistant species. A berm and/or row of salt-tolerant plants can protect sensitive plants from said salts. Frequent shallow waterings create a buildup of salts in the top layer of soil—deep watering helps flush salts out of the soil.

- Plants can be damaged by piling snow, and soil can be compacted underneath. Make sure the garden includes an area for piling snow, possibly a rain garde or bioswale to shovel into/let meltwater flow to.

- call the local utility company before you make bigass changes to your lawn PLEASE don’t hit a utility line. Also don’t plant tough, deep-rooted masses of roots over shallowly buried utility lines. Consider paths of loose gravel/mulch/stepping stones, shallow-rooted ground covers, and/or annuals and other easily replaced plants.

- Vines can be grown on individual wires, metal fencing, latticework, or wooden poles. Match the vine’s growth habit to the structure you want it to climb. HOWEVER regulations may prohibit stuff like this, and you’ll have to be ready to move/remove any added trellising and plants when maintenance time comes around.

- Shrubs can conceal metal boxes and other equipment, or you can use perennials. When using foliage to hide electrical boxes and other utility containers, keep clear access to any doors and allow their complete range of motion.

- If you can’t/don’t want to mask an object, try shielding it from view in certain vantage points. Or incorporate the colors of the equipment into the garden by mimicking the color scheme.

Living with the Public

- Especially if you’ve got a sidewalk running through the front yard, you have to consider EVERYBODY who’s going through there. Strangers, neighbors, vehicles, animals. Pedestrian traffic is an important consideration—wheelchair users, strollers, children, dogs, and depending on where you are even horses are something to keep in mind.

- Elements that can encourage traffic include mat forming ground covers, level places, and paved/graveled/mulched open areas. Elements that discourage traffic include protective fencing, uneven or sloping surfaces, and plants that are tall or look uncomfortable to touch.

- To minimize damage from foot traffic, enlist self-repairing plants whose stems are capable of rerooting when they’re broken and come into contact with soil. Self sowing plants can seed to fill in bare spots, and running plants can spread to fill gaps.

- Protect your nonwalkable plants with edges, hedges, and other hardscape choices. Berming or hollowing planting areas while keeping paths level can be a more effective strategy. Or you can densely plant s low, prickling, spreading shrub to bar passage.

- If visitors will be parking on the street, make sure they can exit their cars safely, and provide a clear path to your door. Said path can be straight and wide, or meandering. Guests on wheels need to be considered though.

- Plants with high moisture content should be planted closer to the curb where fire is a concern. Idling cars can emit occasional sparks and you don’t want long dry grass catching a spark. Instead consider succulents or a rock/stepping stone border along the edge, and keep dry leaves/pine needles from accumulating near parking.

- Fruit or nut trees can yield a notable surplus. Check for gleaning organizations in the community that may pick your extra edibles for personal use or charitable distribution. Or leave them for neighbors to enjoy.

- When clearing paths consider people’s feet and their faces. Keep prickly branches out of the way, take note of sharp leaves or pollen-laden plants that can make a walkway into an obstacle course hazard. If your area is prone to ticks, keep vegetation far enough from the public walk that it won’t brush against people.

- Some people don’t fucking respect gardens, or don’t have manners. Don’t put super mega rarities or plants you can’t afford to lose where the public can access them easily. Or like. You can. But be warned I’ve seen at least 5 stories of people’s front gardens getting defoliated for ‘bouquets’.

- Frequent presence in a garden (or signs of it) can deter littering, vandalism, and other mischief. A garden that looks well kept can discourage negative attention.

- Consider the garden from several points of view. If you’ve got a lot of neighborhood kids and dogs running around, keep poisonous plants near the back. A mulching of large rocks can lead to trouble with rambunctious gremlins. Etc etc.

- The curbside garden can be a great way to build community. You can even encourage communal use. Include a bench for chilling near the sidewalk, fresh food free for all to pick, a sunflower house or bed of pine cones for kids to play, a bowl of water for passing dogs, etc.

- if you want more curbside gardens in your area, consider sharing extra plants, forming a neighborhood garden club, make a list of Good Neighborhood Plants, establish a local contest, give tours of your yard, persuade a local agency or organization to offer grants, and/or lobby to change restrictive regulations.

[lesless]

Cool things I have learned about fungi in the last week:

Fungi are at least 1 billion years old

You can thank fungi for the first dirt

Fungi are predatory & feed through chemical reactions that break down things they come in contact with, sometimes that is rocks but other times that includes round worms and rotifers that they catch with traps called hyphal loops

They are more closely related to animals than plants

Lichen are mostly comprised of fungi

The first land plants were likely the result of fungi joining forces with photosynthesizing aquatic plants

Some species of fungi farm bacteria

The mushroom of a fungus is just the fruiting body of course, the main body of the mushroom is comprised of hyphae (thin threads that expand into the environment. What I didn't know was that the mushroom is also made of hyphae, just much more densely packed!

The famous fungus that makes "zombie ants" actually leaves the ant brain untouched, instead growing between muscle cells. The afflicted ants might be aware the entire time

Before trees or most other plants, huge fungi pillars of Prototaxites towered 24 feet (8m) into the sky & scientists think the only reason they died out is because bugs started eating them. They kind of look like [REDACTED]

Fungi in chernobyl reactor grow towards radiation like plants toward the sun & that really bothers me

Those radioactive-loving fungi also have melanin

Recent research has yielded new fungal weapons against antibiotic resistant bacterias

Mycoremediation is proving an effective method to remove contaminants from soil, & more applications are on the horizon

[tylovesmushrooms]

if you could create an entirely new fungus what would it be like?

It would be bioluminescent (I love bioluminescent stuff, but I don't know much about the science behind it).

It would a mold and it would be mushroom-forming.

It would mycoremediate (I did a whole project about this in school, I'm about to make a post about it).

It would be blue and be common in my area (I haven't seen a blue mushroom yet, it's one of the very few that I haven't seen).

[kammartinez]

By Tatiana Schlossberg

Merlin Sheldrake taking soil samples in sand dunes on the coast of Chile. “Fungi are a kingdom of life that have not had a kingdom’s worth of attention,” he said.Credit...Tomas Munita for The New York Times

About 500 million years ago, when aquatic plants began to inch toward land, they couldn’t live there on their own. They enlisted fungal mycelium networks, which served as their root systems for a few tens of millions of years before they developed their own and could live independently. Still, about 90 percent of plants depend on symbiotic fungi.

But during that time, the planet was transformed: Early plants and their fungal networks helped lower the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide by 90 percent, enabling the conditions for life on Earth as we know it.

These days, human activities are sending atmospheric carbon dioxide levels soaring (though not quite as high as during the pre-fungal period), and scientists and other fungal enthusiasts are hoping that fungi might be able to help us sustain our own existence by drawing down all that carbon once again.

To Merlin Sheldrake, a biologist and author of “Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures,” that is really just one of the amazing things fungi of all kinds do: as “ecosystem engineers,” and as the enablers of our very lives on this planet, whose centrality we ignore “at our peril,” he said.

The following conversation has been edited and condensed.

There has been such an explosion of interest in fungi recently, and I’m wondering how you understand that, or why you think that has come about. Certainly your book is a big part of that.

I think there are a few reasons. One is that we know more about fungi than we used to — technological developments over the last couple of decades have led to really exciting discoveries and have granted new access to fungal lives.

There is also a growing awareness of the fundamental interconnectedness of the living world — driven both by new research and by the worsening fallout from our ecocidal activities — which has prompted an ecological turn in academic and popular discourse. Fungi embody the most basic principle of ecology: that of the relationships between organisms. Mycelium is ecological connective tissue and reminds us that all life-forms, humans included, are bound up within seething networks of relationships, some visible and some less so.

Fungi may have become poster organisms for ecological thinking, but interest in fungal lives has also been driven by the rise of network science. “Network” has become a master concept, from computing to sociology, to neuroscience, ecology, economic systems. Fungi are ancient living networks, and the recent surge of interest in these organisms reflects our modern fascination with the extraordinary power of networks, from transport systems to the internet, to shape our lives and cultures.

And then there’s the urgency. There are a number of ways that we might partner with fungi to help us to adapt to life on a damaged planet, and we don’t know nearly as much as we should. Multiplying ecological emergencies have brought about renewed interest in the fungal world, and there are many radical mycological possibilities.

Some fungi produce powerful antiviral compounds which reduce colony collapse disorder in honeybees. In the process of mycoremediation, fungi can be harnessed to break down toxic pollutants. In mycofabrication, fungi are used to produce sustainable materials, from bricks to leather. Not to mention the many ways that fungi change the way we think, feel and imagine.

Fungi and lichens emerge from a fallen tree in the primeval Bialowieza Forest in Poland.Credit...Wojtek Radwanski/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

I was reading the op-ed you co-wrote in The Guardian about the opportunity that mycorrhizal fungal networks present for carbon and nutrient cycling and storage. How do you think about bridging the gap between the popular cultural interest in fungi and organizing for conservation of these organisms?

Fungi are a kingdom of life that have not had a kingdom’s worth of attention. They are neglected in conservation frameworks, educational curriculums, and scientific and medical research. Part of the challenge is raising awareness of fungal life and the many vital roles they play in the biosphere, of course.

But this is only the start. I work with an organization called the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks, which is trying to create robust maps of the planet’s fungal communities that can be used by decision makers to take account of the life in the soil. I work with two other organizations called Fauna Flora Funga and the Fungi Foundation, which are working to get fungi written into conservation frameworks, many of which currently exclude this third kingdom of macroscopic life. When we destroy fungal communities, we undermine ancient life support systems that make so much of life possible.

Even without the data, when we just talk about carbon sequestration in forests or grasses, mycorrhizal networks don’t usually enter into the conversation. Maybe that’s the bias of us being primarily visual creatures, which is that we look for the thing that we can see.

Despite the fact that soils are a major carbon pool, we tend to neglect underground ecosystems. This is partly because we don’t know much about what happens underground and the many lives that are lived out of our sight. It’s difficult to study these organisms and what they do. In a recent paper that I was a part of, we discuss these challenges in more depth. Our estimates of the carbon that moves into the soil through mycorrhizal fungi are imperfect and should be interpreted with caution, but they give an indication of how important mycorrhizal relationships are in mediating nutrient fluxes in global ecosystems.

When I was reading your book, I often thought, I can’t believe I don’t know this. Fungi have made life on Earth possible, and yet so much of what you wrote about was totally new to me. It made me think, how do we know anything that we think we know?

I love studying the living world because so often our enquiries render the familiar unfamiliar. Fungi, like so many organisms, invite us to think in new ways about many well-handled concepts that we might have thought we understood. There are so many urgent challenges we face today, and there are many ways we can partner with fungi to help adapt to life on a damaged planet. And there is so much we don’t know.

[bilbobagginsomebabez]

oyster mushrooms and false indigo!

oysters are mycoremediators that have proven effective in clearing oil spills and other chemical pollutants out of soil and water, so I have a special fondness for them. false indigo are a native prarie flower I picked because we saw a really beautiful patch of them on the drive

[nitrosplicer]

From The Hidden Kingdom of Fungi by Keith Seifert, p. 191

“The use of fungi to detoxify or clean up oil spills, mining effluents, radioactive waste, and solid pollutants is called mycoremediation. Several moulds grow in hydrocarbon-rich or highly acidic environments and can use petroleum products as a carbon source. The absorptive tendencies of fungal mycelium have been tested to clean up after forest fires, nerve gas attacks, and fuel spills on land or at sea. For example, oil that washed up on San Francisco beaches after the 2007 Cosco Busan spill was mopped up with a mixture of human hair and oyster mushrooms. The disasters at the nuclear power plants at Chernobyl (Ukraine) in 1986 and Fukushima (Japan) in 2011 released radioactive fallout over large areas, including cesium 137, an isotope that causes malignant tumors and shortens life spans significantly. Concerns that Ukrainians eating wild mushrooms would suffer radiation poisoning led to the discovery that many fungi accumulate heavy metals (such as cesium 137) in their mycelium; similar contamination was noted in matsutake in Japan. But the tendency of mycelium to scrounge heavy metals suggests that mushrooms could be cultivated to extract isotopes from soil, with the mushrooms then harvested and incinerated to further concentrate radioactivity for eventual disposal. Later studies of the interior walls of water-cooling towers in the Chernobyl reactor also showed that several house moulds, like Cladosporium cladosporioides, absorb radioactivity in the melanin pigments that darken their cell walls. This mould was investigated on the International Space Station to see if it could be used as a self-replicating radiation shield in spacecraft.”

[pansy-buttercups]

MUSHROOMS IN THE GARDEN BED🍄

(Garden Tips Tuesday #1)

🙘✦🙙🙘✦🙙🙘✦🙙🙘✦🙙🙘✦🙙🙘✦🙙🙘✦🙙🙘✦🙙🙘✦🙙🙘✦🙙

Ft. This little guy in my starter tray <3

First off if you find a mushroom in your garden beds or containers, DONT FREAK OUT! No you didn't do anything wrong, and nothing bad is going on. I think a lot of gardeners that just started out panic at the sight of a capped stalk in their beds because they think it means their soil is messed up or that mushroom will make their plants ill. That was definitely my first reaction a couple years ago the first time a mushroom popped up in one of my containers. Mushrooms and Fungi however are actually a good sign (Normally)!!

What are mushrooms and what do they mean????

Mushrooms and Fungi while not being plants have a couple similar system. Fungi are often complex systems that can span for miles underground in a fine delicate networks called mycelium. These systems can go hundreds of years underground, but only sprout their fruiting bodies (which we call mushrooms) when conditions are right for them to emerge.

And these conditions that make it right for mushrooms to pop out also makes it the right condition for your plants usually. Mushrooms thrive on humidity, moisture, shade, but most importantly decaying organic matter in your soil. Mushrooms help break down the matter in your soil and help make it more accessible for your plants! They are also useful in remedying soil of contaminates, such as oil, heavy metals, pesticides and apparently even bits of radioactive waste. Here's an article that goes way more in depth on how mushrooms are used in land restoration projects:

The relationship between Fungi and Plants:

Finally this is less of a gardening thing and more of an environmental thing, however it still applies. Fungi and plants often share the same ecosystem, and beyond that some share resources too! Why? Simply because they both have something the other needs. Mycelium as previously mentioned breaks down organic matter using enzymes into usable nutrients for themselves. The kind that breaks down dead organic matter for their own use are called Saprophytic fungi and are responsible for recycling our dead organisms. There are however fungi called mycorrhizal fungi that do not live by this method and instead thrive on their symbiotic relationship with plants. Plants have one very important thing the fungi requires which is the sugars they produce through photosynthesis, and the plants require the complex nutrients that only fungi can give them. So the mycelium colonizes the tips of the plants roots and they pass resources back and forth, however mycelium sprawl and connect to other plants meaning these resources also get shared between plants. This also them help keep the balance between an ecosystem by sharing the nutrients of healthier plants to those that are struggling. The large network that communicates nutrients, moisture, and even chemical signals between plants and mycelium is referred to as a mycorrhizal network.

The dozen threats to the network:

The mycelium network however is very delicate often, and human activity often poses a threat to these important fragile systems. There is no short list of threats to mushrooms listing from the already harmful herbicides, fungicides, certain fertilizers, to logging which is a major detriment due to the compaction from both heavy machine and foot traffic and from the damage that comes with removing the stumps. There is however one thing a lot of gardeners do that often damage mycelium networks and that is tilling soil! Along with disrupting the network tilling already has a dozen problems it causes (Which ill probably be writing about as well in a later post). All of these things can lead to the rapidly decay of a proper mycelium network which can sudden cause harm to surrounding plants and trees that relied on them.

How to be a mutual friend to the Mycelium! :

There are however a lot of things you can also do to help promote your fungal friends! Try to avoiding disrupting the soil in your garden as much as much as possible, and looking into no-till alternatives! Leave out lots of organic matter such as fallen leaves, fallen logs, bark, straw, hay, woodchips, basically anything organic and dead. I believe the organic matter my mushroom in the starter tray liked was the coco coir which is also common mushroom cultivation substrate. Fungi also heavily appreciate humidity and shade so make sure to keep the soil around any mushrooms that pop up a fair bit damp. Lastly when you're not gardening and instead out hiking perhaps try to stay on the path to avoid compacting the earth over where precious mycelium is keeping the environment balanced and thriving!

So next time you see a mushroom pop out in your garden be sure to give it a little thank you for keeping the soil nice and helping your plants :)

[delilahdesanges]

[Publishing]

Hot on the heels of the publication of the second Triangulation anthology from Parsec Ink that I’ve been lucky enough to be in, I bring you the news that I’m also a repeat participant in Other World Ink’s anthology series of attempts to unfuck the planet via science fiction! That’s right! Having previously featured The Mycoremediator in Save The World, Other Worlds Ink have taken a second chance…