Paul Staments is trying to save the world … with mushrooms. If you have been living under a rock for the past twenty years (like many mushrooms) then you aren’t familiar with this father of modern mycology who has authored such classic myco manuals as “Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms” and the wildly popular “The Mushrooms Cultivator” (co-authored by Jeff Chilton). You may also know him as the founder of Fungi Perfecti, a research and development facility that also serves as shipping and receiving headquarters for the myriad of mushroom products Staments sells online and through mail order catalogues. Recently it seems Stament’s gears have shifted from “how to grow the better mushroom” to “how the mushroom can better the environment” in his book “Mycelium Running”.
Maybe the idea came to him working as a logger in the 1970s in Washington’s northern Cascades, killing the old growth trees that he would one day protect. Or perhaps when he was almost killed himself by old growth tree shrapnel careening downhill toward him and other co-workers when an overstressed tree trunk imploded. Seeking refuge behind a Douglas fir, Staments realized he wasn’t a logger and went back to school to study botany.
Years later Staments has established himself as a pioneer among not only mycologists but also environmentalists and conservationists alike. He is the 1998 recipient of the Collective Heritage Institute’s Bioneers Award and the 1999 recipient of the Founder of the New Northwest Award. In “Mycelium Running”, more so than in his other books, one can see why he is deserving of such accolades. In this article we will take a look at what techniques made Paul Staments a superhero of science.
“Mycorestoration” is the buzzword of choice simply defined as:
The use of fungi to repair or restore the weakened immune systems of environments.
Mycorestoration can be implemented in four ways:
Staments literally wrote the book on all of the following techniques and in some cases holds patents for specific engineered fungi.
Mycofiltration
This technique is the use of the mycelium network of fungi to filter out microorganisms, silt and pollutants from water. Since the cells of mushroom mycelium are from .5 to 2 microns thick, chains of these cells act as a mesh through which pollutants cannot pass. These chains can stretch for miles, forming an integrated fabric of interconnecting cells.
The mycelium can filter:
And can be installed in:
Staments and crew performed an experiment on Skookum Inlet where mycofiltration in the form of a patch of Garden Giant (stropharia ruguso annulata) mushrooms was installed at the top of parallel sloping basins that dumped polluted water into the salt-water bay. Farm animals’ fecal coliform contaminants seeping into the ground and flowing into the bay produced the pollution. After one year of installing the mushroom beds, analysis of out flowing water showed improvements of one hundred fold proving that mushrooms are living Brita water purifiers!
Mycoforestry
Mycoforestry means using fungi to sustain forest communities. Mycoforestry can:
You may already know that when forests are clear-cut or stripped of trees there is very little done to restore the balance that those trees brought to the ecosystem. Restoration efforts are greatly enhanced when Mycorrhizae are introduced to the sprouting seeds or the roots of young trees before or at the time of planting. Mycorrhizae is the state wherein mushroom mycelium forms on or in the roots of trees or other plants creating a “mycorrhizal symbiosis”. For instance, the mycelium of a mushroom like the Matsutake (tricholoma magnivelave) form mutually-beneficial relationships with pine trees, extending the tree’s range for absorbing nutrients and water while also defending against harmful diseases.
FIGURE 51
Once loggers haul trees away they leave vast fields of debris such as stumps, brush and downed unusable trees. The ecosystem could benefit from the ensuing decomposition, but the debris is dumped in such a way that its biomass is locked away from the food web of bacteria, insects, plants, animals and fungi. Whether this wood is whole or fragmented greatly affects the rate at which nutrients return to the soil because woodchips are quickly consumed by the fungal mycelium.
An experiment was performed by Staments and a team of volunteers on a strip of land on Cortes Island in British Columbia. The land was divided into four different test plots to replant Douglas fir and cedar trees in an area that had been clear-cut. Half of all the tree seedlings were dipped into a mycorrhizal spore mass slurry and the other half were not. Around the bases of all trees, a bed of woodchips was laid using the wood left behind by logging. Less than a year later the data showed that the mycorrhizal-treated trees had an eight percent increase in height and girth, which was significantly more than the untreated trees.
FIGURE 81
Mycoremediation
This is a technique that uses fungi to degrade or remove toxins from the environment. Fungi has proven adept at breaking down long-chained toxins into less-toxic chemicals, and also at removing heavy metals from the land by channeling to the mushroom fruit bodies for removal.
One theory Staments developed involves the “magic mushroom” species psilocybe azurescens and psilocybe cyanescens being effective for breaking down the deadly neurotoxin VX. Since these mushrooms absorb phosphorus from their surroundings to synthesize the psilocybe molecule, hypothetically, psilocybe mycelium could extract phosphorus from VX.
Many mushrooms have proven reliable at removing volatile heavy metals as well. The only obstacle is pairing the most effective absorbing mushroom with the metal. The Portobello (agaricus bisporus) has proven successful at absorbing cadmium and mercury while the porcini (boletus edulis) works on copper, lead and radioactive cesium. Any or all of these metals could be found in a number of contaminated habitats such as:
Determining the best mycoremedation strategy for each site is a challenge since the science is in its infant stages of technology. Many experiments and proof-of-concept trials need to be conducted before commercialization.
One proven method of mycoremedation came with an experiment in Washington State at a diesel- and oil-contaminated maintenance yard. After thirty years of trucks coming and going, the soil had become contaminated at levels reaching two percent of total aromatic hydrocarbons (TAHs). That’s the same percentage measured at the worst locations along Alaska’s banks after the Exxon Valdez spilled eleven million gallons of crude oil in 1989.
Staments and his team set up four 10-cubic foot piles of contaminated soil. Onto one of the piles, pure culture oyster (pleurotus) sawdust spawn was sandwiched in between the soil. The remaining three piles received no mycelium. Two piles were given bacterial treatment and one was left as an untreated control. Four weeks later the non-mycelium-treated pile and the control pile were black and stank of diesel fuel, while the mycelium-treated pile flourished with enormous oyster mushrooms and no longer smelled of diesel at all!
FIGURE 101
Mycopesticides
In the beginning, pesticides were invented to fight destructive insects and to protect crops and structures. What those inventors didn’t realize was that the chemicals used in those pesticides often did more harm than good by destroying nontargeted organisms, polluting water and impairing human health. The need for alternative pesticides was critical since the medical and ecological impact of toxic pesticides posed a cascading health hazard to the biosphere.
The interrelationships between insects and fungi are complex since practically all insects engage, consume or succumb to fungi. Scientists believe that there must be a way to harness the dance between predator and prey. Such is the case of the entomopathogenic fungi, Cordyceps. This species of fungi infects a variety of insects by entering into the respiratory tract, anus or mouth and then germinates from the inside out often sprouting mushrooms from the dead body of the insect. One species of Cordyceps (Cordyceps lloydii) influences the infected insect to climb to the canopy of the rain forest, die and then sporulate through the corpse to ensure regeneration.
FIGURE 115
An interesting experiment that happened by chance turned out to be a revelation to Staments at his small waterfront farm in Washington. First fungus took over the walls and then eventually carpenter ants feeding on the fungi and then the house itself. Staments had the idea of experimenting with a mold that naturally parasitizes insects called Metarhizium anisopliae. Upon receiving a sample culture through the mail Staments transferred the culture to agar on which the mold grew. A white mold began forming from the point of inoculation followed by green spore zones. Staments transferred the mold several times creating downstream “generations” when he noticed an unusual white wedge of growth fanning out from the green mold colonies. From this divergent whitish growth sector Staments grew presporulating Metarhizium mycelium on sterilized rice and fed it to the insects in his home. Subsequently the insects consumed the engineered fungus and each ant became a distribution vector for the deadly mycelium eventually killing the nest in which it never returned.
FIGURE 119
In today’s ever-increasing volatile world of pollution and global warming the talk about conservation, bioremediation and “being green” has reached a fever pitch. We seem to be coming closer to possessing a positive collective conscience about the world in which we live but the ways and means to implement real change are still far off. Everyone can talk a great game about what it will take to save the world from ourselves but when it comes to exacting an individual plan, sometimes the tasks ahead can seem daunting. Are you willing to ride a bike to work instead of drive? Would you be prepared to build your own mycofiltration system in your back yard to improve the small but polluted creek? Can you somehow find a way to reduce your carbon footprint on the world? That is what it will take as individuals, not just a community, but you!
Paul Staments has done the dirty work for us and given us a great manual in which to use the resources we have available to better the environment. That’s his mission after all. Some superheroes fight for truth, justice and the American way but Staments realizes the mission extends much further than our own backyard. Our planet is sick and we are the ultimate cause of its pain and it should sting to realize that humans are the kryptonite to our own super planet. Our industry and technology has made quality of life skyrocket but at what cost? We encourage Shroomtalk readers to pick up Staments book “Mycelium Running” and read for yourself all the ways in which you can do your part utilizing the hobby we love so much.
article by: Junior.