Using fungi to clean up bike grease

Our friend Ja in Eugene at fungiforthepeople.org has been doing some exicting work using Hypsizygus ulmarius (aka the White Elm) mycelium to digest the old grease from his bicycle shop. Wow! He even made up a great how-to on the process here. You can read the intro below.

This is a little project that I started at the bike shop that I manage in Eugene. Its a simple goal: bike shops make a LOT of toxic waste with all of the petroleum greases, chemical solvents, and other random fluids applied to bicycles. Usually these end up on the bench tops and towels and either get thrown away or are washed into the waste-water stream. It is a situation that’s had me irked for years, here we are keeping folks “green” by keeping their bikes on the road, but many a mess is made to provide for that.

So, first step, deal with these troublemakers:

With the benchtop my approach was to cut up a corrugated cardboard bike box and cover the workspace. I nailed it down to the wood bench so that the grease and solvents would be absorbed into it. The cardboard is an excellent snack for the lignin munchin fungi that I will use to break everything down. This is the bench after abut 4 weeks:

Dirty Bench 1

Wheel bench, and yes, a window!

It’s time for a change-up, so my first step is to remove the cardboard and then roll it up. Next I cut them in half and put them in a re-used styrofoam cooler that has a nice fitting lid. I use re-used zip-ties to hold the rolls together and will remove them later.

Bench Rollup

Packed in nice

Once the rolls are neatly packed in there I poured in about a half gallon of warm water. This is vital for the fungi to take the cardboard on as a new home. After about an hour of soaking in the water I stood the rolls upright and packed in between the layers the innoculum of Hypsizygus ulmarius ( aka the White Elm). This is a strain of this species that I have personally developed away from a gourmet stock strain. By generating genetic diversity and applying petroleum products in the new substrates I was able to select a strain that had a diet for petrol products. I didn’t discover their ability to do this myself, it was the work of Paul Stamets that led me to this realization.

Mushrooms in the garden

Mushrooms in the Garden
by Terri Marie Beauséjour

***This article is reposted from http://www.mykoweb.com/articles/gardenmushrooms.html where you can read rest of it.***

Have you ever considered growing mushrooms in your garden? A wide variety of fungi possess qualities of edibility and/or aesthetic beauty appropriate for both the flower and kitchen gardens, or even for general landscaping. They may be grown with no greater effort than that required for plants.

In fact, many varieties will thrive nicely with little or no maintenance. For example, (the delectable Shaggy Mane) would feel right at home in and around your compost pile. The immense stature of the stunning purple-capped, black-gilled Stropharia rugoso-annulata may thrive in an area where lawn and woodchip mulch are in proximity, or between rows of straw-mulched vegetables or fruit trees.

Edible Tricholomas growing in a Garden in Thailand. Photo © Taylor F. Lockwood.

Agaricus species (the Portobello, the Prince, the Horse Mushroom, etc.) are adaptable to grassy areas among trees. Pleurotus species (Oyster mushrooms) are easily grown on a variety of substrates including straw, wood chips, shavings or sawdust — and even whole hardwood logs. There are boundless possibilities if you let your creativity and imagination guide you.

Intrigued? But wondering how to get started?

You should begin by taking a fresh view of your garden or landscape from a new perspective; analyze its “fungamentals.” List or diagram its various micro-habitats with an eye toward the qualities important to fungi. Take note of existing substrates — lawn, treed areas, shrubs and other plantings, newly cut hardwood logs, compost areas of kitchen scraps, branch chippings, grass clippings, manures and mulches of wood chips, straw, etc.

Note conditions of sun and shade, wind and humidity. Determine if any areas may be readily amended to improve the conditions for fungi, the most important of which are warmth, moisture and humidity, along with the proper nutrients and digestible materials.

The beautiful irony is that many substrates suitable for fungi are also beneficial to the garden itself, and most can be obtained for little or no investment, as they are often considered “waste materials” or by-products. Furthermore, the required humidity and protection from direct sunlight can be maintained by your leafy plants, shrubs and trees.

Once you have considered the possibilities, you should determine what mushroom varieties are suitable and desirable. This is a great opportunity to really get to know your mushrooms. Understanding what they need in order to produce fruit bodies will even help you to seek out and find them more easily in the wild. Why, you might ask?

Because you will more quickly analyze and interpret the conditions and microclimates which favor their growth.

*****keep reading at http://www.mykoweb.com/articles/gardenmushrooms.html

Cold Water Straw Pasteurization

Hey, so I’m really stoked to share this easy, fun, DIY technique for treating your straw for cultivation that doesn’t require the needless waste of wood or fossil fuels: Cold water pasteurization!

Simple and scalable, this method is a giant breakthrough in the field of low-tech cultivation techniques and will no doubt help revolutionize the way that fungi are grown around the world. Essentially a fermentation process, this method kills off competitors to your spawn by the simple act of submersion in water over a period of days. During the submersion process the anaerobic microorganisms live and grow while all the aerobic (oxygen loving) microorganisms die. When the water is removed after a week, the anaerobic bacteria die as soon as they are out in the open, leaving “clean” straw to use for inoculation. The process is quite simple and goes as follows:

1.     Line a garbage can (or any hard, upright container) with a heavy duty (3 mil) trashbag, or find a big barrel that you’ll be able to dump.

2.     Fill the bag with dry straw that has (ideally) been chopped with a weed whacker. I don’t personally have a weed whacker so I just break the straw up with my hands. But the increased surface area and smaller pieces provided by the use of this machine will enable better colonization and make handling easier later on.

3.     Fill the can with water, covering the straw.

4.     Add a weight on top to of the straw to keep it submerged.

5.     Put a lid on the can and keep it warm place, ideally in the sun.

6.     Wait 7-12 days. If you’re in a warm environment, it’ll go a lot quicker than if you’re in cold environment.

7.     At this point the water should be discolored and stinky. This is good. You will now want to turn the can upside down and drain the water off. Once empty, twist up the top of the trash bag and turn the can upside down to allow the remaining water to drip off for 2 additional days.

8. Inoculate your straw with your favorite species of mushroom spawn!

Radical Mycology Convergence 2012!

Hello friends, fellow mycophiles, and fungal enthusiasts!
The Mycelial Network Collective is excited to officially announce plans for the 2nd ever Radical Mycology Convergence (RMC) and we want you to come! If you haven´t heard of the RMC before, you can read about first one (in 2011) at the link at the bottom of this email. Following up on the success of last year´s RMC we have hopes to expand the event this year to include even more events and we want you to participate!

What: As with the first RMC, we envision this unique event to be a volunteer-run gathering of mycologists, fungal enthusiasts, and Earth healers coming together to share skills and information related to the benefits of the fungal kingdom in terms of remediative properties as well as human uses. This weekend-long event will culminate in a remediation project (putting theory to practice) and will also be a unique chance to build community with like-minded mycophiles (aka mushroom lovers) from around North America. We are hoping to hold this years´s RMC in October or November somewhere along the West Coast. We are currently on the search for a location. If you have ideas or leads, please read the “Help Us Find A Location” section below.

Why: Because these skills need to get shared! We want to make information on fungi and their helaing powers accessible and tangible for as many people as possible without making it overly-heady or technical. By creating an encouraging space we hope to “bemushroom” all who attend.

Who: The Mycelial Network Collective, organizers of the RMC, would like to cordially invite anyone interested in participating in this event to come and learn, help out, or teach!

We are also asking for as much feedback from people to help us build upon the success of the first RMC. If you can, please take the time to fill out the short interest survey linked below. It will greatly help guide our planning process and to make this year´s RMC as successful as the last.

Survey address:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/C52D9JN

Lastly, we are seeking help with our current top priority: securing a location for some time in October or November of this year. As you can see in the survey, we are looking for suggestions and leads for free or cheap locations somewhere between San Franciso and the Seattle area. The ideal site would be able to host several hundred people, have good foraging sites in the area as well as potential areas for mycological remediation work.

As a fruiting body of all of our mycelial efforts, it will be through our combined efforts that we envision, organize and co-create this year’s RMC, and we would love to have your input and involvement! We are especially in need of people to help organize and promote this year’s event, lead workshops, and create promotional materials. If you interested in helping in any way or if you have ideas or leads on locations, please contact us at radmycology@gmail.com.

For more information and to stay in touch follow the links below.

The official website for the 2012 RMC is here:

http://radicalmycology.wordpress.com/radical-mycology-convergence-2012/

You can also join our (low traffic) email list to stay up to date on the RMC here:

http://lists.actforclimatejustice.org/listinfo.cgi/radmycology-announce-actforclimatejustice.org

Of follow us on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/mycology.convergence

Please consider donating to the RMC via Paypal to help make this event possible:

http://tinyurl.com/78czqs7

To read about the 2011 RMC, see our reportback here:

http://radicalmycology.wordpress.com/2011/09/15/reportback-on-the-first-ever-radical-mycolgoy-convergence/

In sporidarity via ourcelium,

the Mycelial Network Collective, organizers of the Radical Mycology Convergence
www.radicalmycology.com

Slime Mold Computers?

So, even if though they aren’t a member of the fungal kingdom, they are incredible. Yellow Slime Molds are now being programmed to function as a “computer”. The book titled, “Physarum Machines: Computers from Slime Mould” details this process. Its available for sale and can be read online here.

Rainforest Fungus Makes Diesel?

That which decomposes hydrocarbons may also create them….

(PhysOrg.com) — “A unique fungus that makes diesel compounds has been discovered living in trees in the rainforest, according to a paper published in the November issue of Microbiology. The fungus is potentially a totally new source of green energy and scientists are now working to develop its fuel producing potential.”

“The discovery also questions our knowledge of the way fossil fuels are made. The accepted theory is that crude oil, which is used to make diesel, is formed from the remains of dead plants and animals that have been exposed to heat and pressure for millions of years,” said Professor Strobel. “If fungi like this are producing myco-diesel all over the rainforest, they may have contributed to the formation of fossil fuels.”

Check out the article here:

http://www.physorg.com/news144958975.html

Wild edible mushrooms illegal to serve in NY restaurant

What has the world come to when a guy can’t even serve delicious mushrooms at his own restaurant. As the FDA closes the gap on food autonomy, only the home cultivator will survive.. maybe. Here’s an article we came across recently.

Thinking of tasting the wild oyster mushrooms Arie Pavlou picked while mushroom hunting in the woods two weeks ago?

You won’t find them at Comtesse Thérèse Bistro, where Mr. Pavlou is executive chef.

Inspectors from Suffolk County’s Department of Health Services stopped by the bistro on Friday and searched for — but did not find — wild oyster mushrooms, which are illegal to sell when gathered from the woods.

“They said [a department] supervisor put the newspaper on the inspector’s desk and told them to check this place out,” Mr. Pavlou said. “They were looking everywhere for the mushrooms, but they were all cooked up.”

Mr. Pavlou was quick to admit he served many dishes with wild oyster mushrooms before the investigators paid him a visit.

He said officials told him during a July inspection that he could sell wild mushrooms.

“It’s a very cloudy spot,” Mr. Pavlou said. “A lot of them aren’t very familiar with that because a lot of chefs don’t forage their own mushrooms.”

Harvested mushrooms served in restaurants must be grown, harvested and processed in an operation regulated by a food regulatory agency, according to Article 13 of the sanitary code. Wild mushrooms can also be sold if they were packaged at a regulated food processing plant.

Mr. Pavlou’s mushrooms — a whopping 105 pounds of them — were plucked from wooded areas in Riverhead and Cutchogue.

Mr. Pavlou has been hunting for mushrooms since he was 5 years old and has harvested and cooked up found fungi all his life. He confirmed that the mushrooms were edible with members of the Long Island Mycological Club shortly after he found them.

“We haven’t had any funeral announcements in the paper yet, so everybody survived the mushrooms,” Mr. Pavlou said. “I made sure it was edible, I made sure it was good so I wouldn’t lose any customers.”

Ms. Kelly-McGovern said the Department of Health Services has not heard any reports of health issues associated with the mushrooms…

Full story here

Upcoming Radical Mycology Meetings!

Amanita muscaria primordia

As the fall rains come in, 

the West Coast has 3 local 

groups in their primordial 

stage! Check em out.

             

Portland, OR–First Portland Radical Mycology Meet-up and Potluck
Tuesday November 15th, 2011 6:00pm
HARP Center
2926 NE Flanders St.
Portland, OR 97232

This will be their first brainstorming session to discuss the potential and inspiration for Portland Radical Mycology. Bring a potluck dish if you can (as well as your own plate & utensils), and come prepared with ideas! Contact ariel at armillariamellea@gmail.com to get involved

Email pdxradmyco@comfrey.net to get on their listserv

Puget Sound area, WA—First meeting and brainstorm session for the new Olympia Mycelial Network 3pm on November 12th at Media Island Internation 816 S Adams St. Olympia, WA.

Contact radmycology@gmail.com for more info.

San Francisco Bay area, CA—Workshop and Meeting on Saturday, November 19th at the Long Haul Infoshoppe – 3124 Shattuck Ave. Berkeley, CA

1pm – 2:00 Radical Mycology: Decomposing industrial toxins and feeding ecological stability with mushrooms w/ Maya

This interactive power-point workshop will explore some of the ways that humans can reintegrate in to our ecosystems by working with fungi. We’ll talk about basic fungal biology, ecological restoration with fungi, mycophilosophy, mycogardening, basic mushroom cultivation techniques, mushroom identification and more.

2:00pm – 3:00 First ever Bay Area Radical Mycology group meeting to discuss all the cool projects we could do together.

If you can’t come, but you wanna be involved, contact armillarianabs@gmail.com

                           

Reportback on the first ever Radical Mycology Convergence

September 14, 2011

Over 200 people gathered in northern Washington state this past Labor Day weekend to learn about the many uses of the fungal kingdom at the world’s first Radical Mycology Convergence. For four days, people gathered from several countries and various cultural backgrounds to teach and learn together about mycoremediation, the use of fungi as a tool to help combat mass pollution and ecological degradation. In an age when so many human caused disasters are occurring throughout the world, the fungi are beginning to be seen as a strong option for tackling some of these great problems long thought impossible to solve.

WHY RADICAL MYCOLOGY?

Access to mycological information is not easy. With a cultural view that fears fungi, a schooling system that undervalues them, and only a small number of courses on advanced mycology worldwide, it is easy to see why the fifth kingdom is so disregarded and misunderstood. As one of the youngest natural sciences, mycology (the study of fungi) has largely been kept in the hands of professionals since its development with much of the official work focusing simply on taxonomy and species edibility/toxicity. However, in the last few decades (and really just the last few years) the greater fungi have started to gain more acceptance and familiarity to those outside of academia as their uses beyond the dinner plate are starting to be realized.

It is surprising to note that most people do not realize that fungi are not only on, in and a part of all living (and once-living) things but that they play an extremely important role in the life cycle of plants as well. Acting like stewards of the forest, certain fungi create complex networks of “mycelium” (that white stuff you see when you pull back a decaying log) underground that serve to channel nutrients and water between plants and to help maintain the health of entire ecosystems. The fungi are also responsible for the decomposition of all woody material, turning dead plant matter in to fresh soil for new plants to thrive in. Without the fungi the world would be piled high in dead trees with no new ones growing.

In the last decade or so, mycologists have discovered that the same enzymes that fungi naturally produce to digest their food can also be used to break down toxic pollutants and petroleum products. Species have been discovered that can digest plastics, disposable diapers, motor oil, DDT, and Agent Orange as well as sequester and concentrate heavy metals out of polluted soil for later disposal. This emerging field of “mycoremediation” has only barely gained a foundation from which to grow on as in-depth research and experimentation in the last few years has been scant at best and suppressed at worst. As such a powerful ally in the fight to save the planet before ecological collapse, the fungi are now more worthy of investigation than ever before*. Thus, the RMC was formed to foster a community of people interested in developing and implementing mycoremediative techniques to provide a resource for peer learning and encouragement.

Through the use of fungi to enact change, we are attempting to radically challenge assumptions about the importance of the fungal kingdom in an effort to help shift our relationship to the Earth toward greater harmony.

WHY A CONVERGENCE?

The intent of the organizers of the RMC in forming the event was three fold: 1) To share mycological information in an accessible manner using the simplest techniques and a minimal amount of equipment 2) To promote the use of mycoremediation techniques & 3) To build an all-inclusive & non-hierarchical network of amateur & professional mycologists. We feel we were quite successful in our efforts to a degree beyond any expectations.

Despite a full schedule all weekend, the RMC went off without a hitch. Workshops included sterile and non-sterile cultivation methods, mycopermaculture/mushrooms in the garden, mycomedicinals, mushroom paper and dye making, and fungi and lichen identification. There were also presentations on ethnomycology in Mexico by professional mycologists from Baja California. Folks from the Amazon Mycorenewal Project spoke on their work to clean up oil spills in Ecuador using oyster mushrooms. And a representative from the Mushroom Development Foundation spoke to their work teaching Indian farmers to grow mushrooms from agricultural waste. All this took place on a communal farm with nightly group fires, a raging talent show and raffle, and great swimming holes. Add in a general sense of commonality and you get an inspiring weekend of learning and building a community where one had not existed before.

Many presenters demonstrated techniques they had developed on their own to reduce the use of fossil fuels and expensive equipment from cultivating mushrooms. James from Amateur Mycology in Colorado stated that he hadn’t thrown away a piece of paper for 2 years as he was turning it all into mushrooms. James also spoke of successes in using mushroom beds as living mulch in a greenhouse to increase plant yields. Another workshop demonstrated tissue culturing in open air using only hydrogen peroxide and alcohol to sterilize your equipment. A big take away message from the weekend was that there is so much yet to be discovered about mycology–and so few people doing it–that it will take the work of amateurs to increase understanding.

As a culmination to the weekend, we implemented 2 small remediation projects at the host farm to put theory to practice. We set up 2 beds of King Stropharia mushrooms to help decompose the humanure produced at the farm. We also installed various burlap sacks inoculated with Blue Oyster mushrooms around the farm’s spring to help filter the water or possible runoff from a nearby road as well as prevent erosion to the surrounding hill side.

Through the RMC we created an environment that encouraged skill and knowledge sharing by embracing diversity and working toward the greater goal of a healthier planet and way of life. With the advances being made over the last few years, working with the fungi has never been easier than now, at a time when their capabilities are of greatest import. This information deserves to be in the hands of those who want it and the Radical Mycology Convergence was one step among several toward reaching that goal.

NEXT STEPS

On the final day of the convergence an open discussion was held to reflect on the RMC and to discuss ideas for future gatherings as well as how folks plan to implement this information in their local communities. The consensus showed that those present were excited to begin the process of developing a web-based forum or wiki to enable cultivators and experimenters to share techniques and experiences in relation to low-tech cultivation and remediation work. Similarly, free publications will be produced that teach these techniques and demonstrate case studies of the work people are doing with fungi. Also, a decentralized formal network will be created of groups of people doing this work so as to stay connected, organize future/regional RMCs, and to collaborate as desired.

A truly unique event, the first Radical Mycology Convergence was a huge success drawing in all types of people to live and learn together. The RMC demonstrated the power of a shared concern for the future of the planet to overcome personal differences in political or worldviews and the need to embrace novel ideas for tackling some of the world’s problems. We found that out of their backyards and garages, people are developing novel ways to work with the fungi to reduce their waste streams, filter their water, produce food and potent medicines easily, as well as work to clean up their local landbases thru remediation work.

The meme of radical mycology is only just developing. Time will tell how common this information and these techniques will become in the future. For now we invite those interested in learning more to follow the links and articles at www.radicalmycology.com.

In sporidarity,

The Radical Mycology Convergence organizers

radmycology@gmail.com

* This is not to say this information addresses the problem of eliminating the manufacturing of these products. Rather it provides a way to actually deal with existing problems alongside efforts to stop their proliferation.

Open air cultivation

Mycelium running

Andy MacKinnon on lichens

Forest Floor Cultivation with Amateur Mycology

Talent Show

Bunker Spawn

King Stropharia beds for humanure

PHOTOS BY: Charlotte

Post RMC Interview

One of the organizers of the Radical Mycology Convergence got on the local short wave radio station, KOWA, in Olympia, WA earlier today to talk about the RMC and plans for the future. Check out the interview below. Written reportback on the RMC to come soon. Stay tuned.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3: