A Word In Edgewise: Fantastic Fungi: Mycoremediation 101–required

I feel it will be best if world leaders–any official from mayor on up, had required reading assignments, wrote term papers and sat exams, passing with a minimum B-minus. Draconian, but some things won’t change as long as profit’s the only ring to grab on Earth’s merry-go-round.

My epiphany came as I perused articles and interviews in Paul Stamets’s Fantastic Fungi: How Mushrooms Can Heal, Shift Consciousness & Save the Planet. Things are a bit tetchy on Terra, given the myriad ways we’re polluting ourselves, others, and Earth. These authors are of a similar mind, each bringing to this short volume some aspect of the near-miraculous properties of fungi (three million species with perhaps millions more).

The mushrooms one sees in the forest, buys in the supermarket, orders out on the town, are the fruiting bodies of uncountable thready miles of mycelium that run beneath our feet–throughout the planet. Should they vanish, the merry-go-round would spin–vacant.

The capacity of fungi to break down chemicals and eliminate toxins, writes mycologist Daniel Reyes, has been proven, and now we must find ways to use fungal “Mycoremediation” to “absorb, degrade, or sequester contaminants in soil or water;” to “break down more complex chains of toxic molecules into smaller pieces” allowing other microorganisms to finish the job, restoring life to damaged sites.

Some liken mycorrhizal fungi interconnections to the Internet, but, Merlin Sheldrake (Entangled Life) explains, fungi are so ancient they aided plants’ ancestors to desert water for land 450,000,000 years ago. The Internet, he reminds, connects people through inert hardware, while mycorrhizal networks are mainly “wetware” whose main actors are “agents with interests, making decisions moment by moment on how to manage their survival.”

One take-away from these essays and interviews is that learning about this vast system and its uses is daunting; it already exists, ready and waiting to be optimally organized for human benefit. It’s there ; ready to replace drenching crops and workers alike in insecticides, and so on.

Tradd Cotter, author of Organic Mushroom Farming asks, “What is more important than fungi?” then answers, “Nothing.” Water-related diseases kill three million yearly, so he’s currently working with Clemson University’s engineering department using small bins to grow biomass. These myceliated blocks of substrate act as a micron filter. “By creating entry points through these blocks, you can channel water through them and strip out the bacterial and biological contaminants–including cholera–that stick to the particulates that the mycelium filters out.”

Others describe similar lo-tech solutions started with pilot studies at a city-level, where the presence of “citizen scientists” is growing, attracted by community labs where their knowledge can be tested and pooled and provide access to equipment beyond an individual’s pocketbook. “We’re really on the cusp of what’s possible,” said Reyes.

To make even a small gain against life-threatening  and energy-sapping diseases through mycelium filters or mycelium protected crop seeds could tip the balance towards healthier and longer lives, greater personal income and national economies. Why wait for possible massive funding or some vast scale future project when small victories can be won daily with simple myceliated blocks of substrate?

“Think Small: Start Now With What You Have” would be my Core Curriculum’s keystone. Folks are experimenting on their own–and it’s working.