From: Wesley Roe and Santa Barbara Permaculture Network <lakinroe@silcom.com>
To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [permaculture] SAT Feb 13/Santa Barbara /How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World with Paul Stamets SUN Feb 14 LA
Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2010 21:49:36 -0800
Santa Barbara City College Center for Sustainability &
Santa Barbara Permaculture Network
presents:
~Mycelium Running~
How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World
with Paul Stamets
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Fe Bland Auditorium, Santa Barbara City College West Campus
7-9:30 pm, Admission $20 (SBCC students$10)
P aul Stamets believes growing mushrooms
may be the best thing we can do to save the
environment. A dedicated mycologist for more than
thirty years, Stamets notes that humans, although
adept at inventing toxins, are equally inept at
removing them from our environment. He believes
mushrooms can save the world.
In a rare appearance on the South Coast,
Paul Stamets will give an evening talk on
Saturday, February 13, at 7pm, hosted by the SBCC
Center for Sustainability, at the Fe Bland
Auditorium, SBCC West Campus. Stamets will share
how he feels a mycological rescue of the planet
can occur with the help of fungi. Mycelium,
filaments of microscopic cells---of which
mushrooms are the fruit---recycle carbon,
nitrogen and other essential elements as they
break down plant and animal debris. What Stamets
has discovered is that the enzymes and acids that
mycelium produce to decompose this debris, are
also superb at breaking apart hydrocarbons, the
base structure common to many pollutants.
Stamets coined the word myco-restoration, to
describe engaging mycelium to heal habitats and
stabilize ecosystems. He believes that mycelium
are the neurological network of nature, and that
without fungi, all ecosystems would fail.
M ost think of mushrooms only in terms
of edibles like Portabellos or Chantrelles, but
the part fungi plays in the evolution of the
planet is extraordinary. Stamets states that
when the Earth formed 4.5 billion years ago and
coalesced out of stardust, organisms first
appeared in the ocean. The very first organisms
on land were fungi. Earth's ongoing history
included asteroid impacts, with loss sometimes of
90% of plant and animal life due to debris dust
blotting out the sun. But fungi, without the
need for sunlight, survived, and so did animals
and plants that formed relationships with them.
Paul Stamets has been a mushroom
enthusiast since the late 1970s, and is the
founder of Fungi Perfecti (www.fungi.com). He has
discovered four new species of mushrooms, and
pioneered countless techniques in the field of
edible and medicinal mushroom cultivation. He
received the 1998 "Bioneers Award" from The
Collective Heritage Institute, and the 1999
"Founder of a New Northwest Award" from the
Pacific Rim Association of Resource Conservation
and Development Councils. In 2008, Paul received
the National Geographic Adventure Magazine's
Green-Novator and the Argosy Foundation's
E-chievement Awards. He was also named one of
Utne Reader's
"<http://www.utne.com/2008-11-13/50-Visionaries-Who-Are-Changing-Your-World.aspx>50
Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World" in their
NovemberDecember 2008 issue. He has written six
books on mushroom cultivation, use and
identification, his latest book is Mycelium
Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World.
He has been a presenter at the prestigious TED
conference.
The event takes place on Saturday, February 13,
7-9:30pm at the Fe Bland Forum auditorium, SBCC
West Campus, 721 Cliff Drive. Admission $20 ($10
SBCC Students), no reservations, first come
basis. The event is sponsored by the SBCC Center
for Sustainability and the Santa Barbara
Permaculture Network Non-Profit. For more
information, (805) 965-0581, ext. 2177;
msbushman@sbcc.edu.
ALSO LOS ANGELES
Sunday February 14th. Mycologist Paul Stamets
will be our keynote speaker at the LAMS annual
fair on Details at: www.lamushrooms.org
Santa Barbara Permaculture Network
an educational non-profit since 2000
(805) 962-2571
P.O. Box 92156, Santa Barbara, CA 93190
margie@sbpermaculture.org
www.sbpermaculture.org
From neshura@gmail.com Fri Feb 12 10:42:55 2010
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From: neshura <neshura@gmail.com>
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Subject: [permaculture] Seedballs in bulk: concept sketch
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Hey everyone -- just wanted to throw out a quick idea sketch of how to
hack fireworks hobbyist techniques to produce seedballs in very large
quantities when you don't have access to manual labor (i.e. 25 friends
and family) or a big clay pit
I've seen quite a few citations or suggestions to use a concrete mixer
to make seedballs, but they weren't very specific, more like "It
should work".
It wasn't til I saw someone working with a star roller that I thought,
"Now THERE is a seedball technique with most of the kinks worked
out!". A 15 second clip of a homemade star roller on youtube should
illustrate this enough for anyone to go "AHA!" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?vNMoutL3ON8
CONCEPT: Adapt a star roller to tumble seed balls instead of fireworks
HARDWARE: 5 gallon bucket and a motor, or access to a friend with a
star roller, or a small concrete mixer with blades removed, along with
the other accoutrements of seedball making (drying screens, etc)
SOFTWARE: Powder clay, fine humus (dry), small seeds, water, and an
organic circular core (Cocoa Puffs, Kix, or other circular cereal)
Best place to see a star roller in action is the fireworks episode of
"Dirty Jobs" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_XXUEDPVBY Pt 3 shows
the rollers in action). A seedball is just the organic version of a
black powder star core. Essentially, you *should* be able to use the
exact same technique. The Cocoa Puffs tumble in the roller, with a
scoop of fine clay. Mist with water until you see the clay start
accreting as a thin layer on the cores. As the balls get larger, add
small seeds, fine humus, and more clay, and continue to mist just
enough to keep the balls growing in size. Finish with a thin coating
of pure clay to protect the seed ball, then spread out to dry on a
screen.
The above isn't directions per se, just a description of the process.
If you really wanted to do this, you would go study up on the
fireworks technique itself and try to use their proportions, mixing
rates, and measurements, which I think is the real value of this
exercise -- seedballs don't need to be precisely measured, but
fireworks do, and so the directions are necessarily extremely
detailed.
As someone who regularly fails on projects where the directions
mostly consist of hand-waving and adjectives like "approximately", I
am a person who appreciates a little extra precision (I would love to
have a library consisting entirely of "...For Dummies" books).
SEED BALL SPECIFIC QUESTIONS
Are the clay and humus powdery enough to accrete evenly?
What's the largest size seed you could use that would still stick reliably?
How long would it take to make 250 1" seedballs with this method? 10,000?
Which is the bigger limiting factor, materials cost, or drying time/space?
Does using Cocoa Puffs (chocolaty tools of corporate overlords)
outweigh the positive intentions of reseeding a vacant lot or
relocalizing an abandoned construction site?
Obviously this technique is a bit biased to help the city guerrilla
gardener who has only a 7th story apartment balcony at their disposal,
but I thought it a very interesting thought experiment! Comments
welcome!
[permaculture] SAT Feb 13/Santa Barbara /How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World with Paul Stamets SUN Feb 14 LA,
Wesley Roe and Santa Barbara Permaculture Network, 02/12/2010