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  • From: dwoodard@becon.org
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [permaculture] Soil cleanup with mushrooms
  • Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 04:56:44 -0500 (EST)

For your information, from a Green Party list.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada

************************************************************

Dave F. in BC writes:

One of the mycological remediation pioneers (bioneers) is Paul Stamets--see
article below. Stamets and Jeff Chilton wrote the definitive text "Mushroom
Cultivator" http://www.erowid.org/library/books/mushroom_cultivator.shtml
in 1983 (the year of the founding of the GPC) . Jeff is the current Admin
Chair of the GPBC--has a Reishi Mushroom farm at Robert's Creek on BC's
sunshine coast.

----------------------------------------------------

Mushroom Power by Paul Stamets http://www.futurenet.org/article.asp?id=597
>From the lowly fungus blooms recipes for healing, cleansing, and restoration

When I moved to my waterfront farm on Skookum Inlet, Washington state, I
inherited six Angus cows. An inspection showed that the outflow of water
from my property was jeopardizing the quality of my neighbor's commercial
shellfish beach, with the bacteria count close to the legal limit. I decided
to install an outdoor mushroom bed in a gulch leading to the beach. The
following year, after the mushroom beds were colonized with mycelium, the
coliform count had decreased to nearly undetectable levels. This led to the
term I have coined "mycofiltration," the use of fungal mats as biological
filters, which has become my passion and my vocation.

Mycelium-the network of fungal cells-produces extracellular enzymes and
acids that can dismantle long chains of hydrogen and carbon, the base
structure common to oils, petroleum products, pesticides, PCBs, and many
other pollutants. For the past four years I have been working with Battelle
Laboratories, a non-profit foundation widely used by the United States and
other governments in finding solutions to toxic wastes. We began a series of
experiments employing the strains from my mushroom gene library, many of
which came from specimens collected while hiking in the old growth forests
of the Olympic and Cascade mountains.

After several years, and redundant experiments to prove to naysayers that
our data were valid, we have made some astonishing discoveries. The first
significant study showed that a strain of Oyster mushrooms could break down
heavy oil. A trial project at a vehicle storage center controlled by the
Washington State Department of Transportation enlisted the techniques from
several competing bioremediation groups. The soil was blackened with oil and
reeked of aromatic hydrocarbons. We inoculated one berm of soil
approximately 8 feet by 30 feet by 3 feet high with mushroom spawn, while
others employed a variety of methods, ranging from bacteria to chemical
agents. After four weeks, the tarps were pulled back from each test pile.
The first piles employing the other techniques were unremarkable. Then the
tarp was pulled from our pile, and gasps of astonishment and laughter welled
up from the observers. The hydro-carbon-laden pile was bursting with
mushrooms! Oyster mushrooms up to 12 inches in diameter had formed across
the pile. Analyses showed that more than 95 percent of the PAH (polycyclic
aromatic hydrocarbons) were destroyed, reduced to non-toxic components. The
mushrooms were also free of any petroleum products.

After eight weeks, the mushrooms had rotted away, and then came another
startling revelation. As the mushrooms rotted, flies were attracted, feeding
on the mushroom spores. The flies became a magnet for other insects, which
in turn brought in birds. Apparently the birds brought in seeds. Soon our
pile was an oasis, the only pile teeming with life.

Another discovery is that one species of mushroom can be used to break down
VX, the potent nerve gas agent Saddam Hussein was accused of loading into
warheads during the Gulf War. I've also found that a mycelium-inoculated
mulch bed makes an effective filter for farm runoff. We've used the same
method in restoring closed roads, thousands of which are left over from
logging and which are one of the greatest threats to water quality in the
US.

Although we have looked at just a few of the mushroom species resident in
old growth forests, clearly these ancestral strains of mushrooms have
survived millennia due to their inherent ability to adapt. These adaptive
mechanisms are the very foundation of ecological stability and vitality in a
rapidly changing environment.





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