For Audrey Speyer, founder of PuriFungi, seeing fungi blooming on cigarette butts is proof that they’re at work, doing what they do best: decomposing matter. Her Belgian start-up cultivates mycelium—the thread-like root structure of fungus—using the plastic- and toxin-laden stubs as fodder.

As digestive enzymes break down the hazardous mix, the mycelium grows into a lightweight, styrofoam-like material that gets molded into ashtrays. Distributed at music festivals and public events and in municipalities throughout Belgium, France and Luxembourg, the upcycled product, which looks like a hollowed-out wheel of camembert, brings the process full circle by reining in the world’s most discarded waste item.

Since the dawn of civilization, humans have harnessed the remarkable power of fungi—an entire kingdom of multicellular organisms that includes mold, mushrooms and truffles—to digest complex organic matter into simpler structures. Yeast feeds on sugars, for example, to produce alcohol, while certain mold strains churn out penicillin and other antibiotics. And mushrooms of all kinds sprout as they feast on crop waste, coffee grounds and horse manure.

More recently, mycologists have been unleashing fungi on common industrial and consumer waste. With a voracious appetite for environmental pollutants such as petroleum, plastics and chemicals, these natural bioreactors safely digest and transform toxins into mycelium. Along with ashtrays, the lightweight, durable and fire-resistant substrate can be molded and fabricated into an array of applications such as insulation panels, a leather alternative and even a biodegradable casket.

“Fungi are nature’s recyclers,” says Speyer. Cost-effective and low-impact, she and other mycoenthusiasts see huge potential for mushrooms to power a full-circle economy, creating a renewable material source while extinguishing common sources of toxic waste.

Mycelium breaks down the toxins in cigarette butts and grows into a styrofoam-like material that can be molded into different shapes. (Photos courtesy of PuriFungi)

No silver bullet

Mycoremediation—the practice of using fungi to clean up pollutants such as petroleum, chemicals and plastics—has long been studied as a promising solution to decontaminating oil spills, pesticide-laced soil and toxic wildfire ash. But, so far, efforts have been limited mostly to small-scale and trial applications.

“Contamination is not a straightforward problem,” says Kawina Robichaud, a mycologist at Biopterre, a Quebec-based research center specializing in bio-industrial innovation. Addressing site-specific variables—including the mix and concentration of contaminants, soil composition, climate and temperature—often requires a highly tailored approach to remediation, so “there’s no silver bullet,” she says.

One of Robichaud’s research projects explored the clean-up of a remote Yukon Territory site worthy of a Superfund designation: an abandoned waste oil dump built over an old copper mine. Besides foraging for fungi adapted to the subarctic environment, taming the stew of toxins required a larger bioremediation strategy, using local willows to concentrate inorganic contaminants such as heavy metals, as well as municipal compost, which added microbes and nutrients to help spur decomposition. (Inorganic compounds, by nature, don’t decompose but can be sequestered by organisms including mushrooms, plants and animals.)

The results were encouraging, says Robichaud, with test plots showing a 75-percent decrease in petroleum hydrocarbons. Yet, they also underscored the fact that, in nature, “fungi don’t work alone,” so site remediation tends to take “a community of organisms” to get the job done.

However, the ecosystem-based approach inherently comes with unknowns in consistency and timeline—factors that can make on-site applications a difficult business model, says Robichaud, especially in situations that call for quick and aggressive responses. “Nature takes time,” she adds. “That’s often not compatible with the world that we live in, where we want things fixed now.”

Still, the field holds clear advantages over conventional practices, which frequently involve chemical treatments and resource-intensive pumping, dredging and extraction. Using local resources to remediate waste, particularly in remote regions, also means “we’re not trucking raw materials hundreds of kilometers,” says Robichaud, “burning fuel to clean up fuel.”

For now, mycoremediation may be most effective when targeted on a singular waste source. Robichaud is currently studying the mycoremediation of retired railroad ties laced with creosote, a toxic compound used to make heavy lumber rot-resistant. The selective emphasis on one material allows for a controllable, predictable and scalable means of managing pollutants—an approach more amenable, she says, to garnering industry support.

Narrowing the scope

Because pollutant-laden waste is everywhere, narrow targets can still have huge impact, says PuriFungi’s Speyer. Take cigarette butts: With more than 4,000 contaminants, including 50 known carcinogens, “it’s a big cocktail of very bad things that spreads everywhere,” she says, noting that one stub can pollute 500 liters (132 gallons) of water. And the recent rise in smoking only heightens the need to find safe and effective ways to treat toxic waste that’s literally “under our feet.”

A designer by training, Speyer stumbled on fungi while searching for a sustainable and easy-to-cultivate material. In addition to being durable, fast-growing and adaptable to a range of applications, discovering that mycelium could render pollutants safe made it an attractive bio-based product, she says.

“Fungi are nature’s recyclers,” says PuriFungi’s Audrey Speyer. (Photo courtesy of PuriFungi)

Speyer and her crew cultivate fungi in a humidity- and temperature-controlled environment much like an indoor mushroom farm, inoculating a mix of cigarette butts and hemp with oyster mushroom spores. After the initial incubation period, they break up the substrate by hand and set the clumps into molds. Over the next few weeks, the mycelium grows as it eats away at organic pollutants and fruit mushrooms that concentrate heavy metals. As it fills into its prescribed shape, the fruits are plucked away; the final product is then heat pasteurized to completion.

Speckled with straw-like remnants of disintegrated butts, PuriFungi’s bloomy rind-covered ashtrays have steadily caught the eyes of municipal officials and event organizers looking to promote awareness—and develop outlets—for proper cigarette disposal. And as consumers learn about their provenance, it helps spur responsible behavior towards curbing litter, says Speyer.

With more reliable outcomes, waste-specific approaches to mycoremediation may make it an easier sell to industry. Robichaud’s lab recently partnered with Atelier du Partage, a Goodwill-like organization based outside of Quebec, to find an alternative to disposing the 66 percent of donated clothing that the non-profit is unable to sell—a staggering amount that totals nearly 30 tons every year. Using fungi to decompose the heaps of fabric keeps plastic fibers, fire retardants and other pollutants out of landfills and incinerators, says Robichaud. And as a bonus, the mycelium-treated threads, which retain some of their original colors, mold into shabby chic Christmas tree ornaments, making for a surprise hit among Atelier shoppers last holiday season.

With clothing and textiles responsible for 20 percent of global refuse, it’s an end-of-life solution that, at scale, could chart a new course for the high-volume waste stream.

Left: Native fungus isolated from creosote-treated wood. Right: Mycelium-treated threads molded into Christmas ornaments. (Photos courtesy of Biopterre)

The fungi-powered circular economy is also taking root in the construction industry, which produces nearly a third of the nation’s waste, contributing vast amounts of material produced from petrochemicals. Tech giant Meta has partnered with a mycoproduct company to upcycle demolished drywall from its Tennessee data center into new insulation and acoustic panels, and Lendlease, a military housing developer, is embarking on a similar venture using old asphalt shingles.

Despite the mushrooming waste problem generated by industry, the current push towards sustainable waste solutions is largely driven by external forces. But really, it’s “the [product] producers who have a responsibility to make it happen,” says Speyer. She sees the broader extension of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) policies, which hold manufacturers responsible for collection, recycling and disposal of their products, as key to fueling regenerative waste management practices and supply chains.

Although EPR mandates have taken effect in an increasing range of countries and jurisdictions, including the European Union, Canadian provinces and a handful of US states, most focus on single-use plastics and packaging materials. Last year, the EU extended the obligation to tobacco manufacturers, although critics report that the regulations lack teeth.

Nevertheless, Speyer notes that a few cigarette companies have expressed interest in PuriFungi’s technology—although that’s posed a certain dilemma, she says, because “you don’t want to give them an excuse to keep producing more [of the same].” Ultimately, she’d like to see the development of a non-toxic, naturally biodegradable product.

While that might run counter to her current business model, “the [waste] problem is at such a massive scale,” says Speyer, that, at this point, there’s really no shortage of solutions.

The post Can Mushrooms Help Extinguish Toxic Waste? appeared first on Modern Farmer.

“I try to grow to have a little bit more volume than my customers need, because new customers are popping up every couple of weeks,” says Hansen.

Psilocybin is a nascent legal market in Oregon—not even a year old. Psilocybin, however, is a mushroom component that has been regarded for its myriad influences—on spirituality, health, consciousness and more—for thousands of years. Federally, psilocybin is still classified as a Schedule One drug, but across the country, cities, states and communities are navigating what holistic psilocybin access can look like.

Measure 109

Indigenous cultures across the world have long had relationships with psychedelic plants and mushrooms, but legalizing psilocybin access is new to the US. In recent years, Oregon, and then Colorado, have been the only states in the US to legalize and decriminalize psilocybin, but several cities across the country have also passed decriminalization resolutions. Psilocybin was designated as a breakthrough therapy by the Food and Drug Administration for the first time in 2018, for its promising impact on treatment-resistant depression and other mental health conditions.

Tori Armbrust, owner of Satori Farms, was the first manufacturer of psilocybin to get her license in Oregon. This means that she grows mushrooms containing psilocybin—in Oregon, people who grow mushrooms for psilocybin are not called growers or cultivators but manufacturers. She applied for her license when applications opened, in January of 2023. 

In 2020, Oregon voters passed Measure 109, which legalized the facilitated use of psilocybin for the public. Measure 109 made the Oregon Health Authority the governing body that would license and regulate the industry. Over the next two years, rules and regulations were developed for how this should work.

In her application, Armbrust navigated the requirements set by the OHA, including proving Oregon residency, getting a background check, paying the $500 application fee and the $10,000 annual licensing fee, acquiring premises and getting it approved. For growers and service centers, land use is one of the biggest hurdles to overcome.

Armbrust needed to find a space that met the zoning requirements. But even if a building is zoned appropriately, it doesn’t mean the location will work for psilocybin manufacturing, since psilocybin is still considered a Schedule One drug at the federal level. 

“You have to get owner approval and signatures for this use because it is federally illegal,” says Armbrust. “That’s one of the biggest challenges because most commercial owners still carry loans and the loans can be affected if the bank finds out that we’re doing something federally illegal.”

A session room at a service center sponsored by Bendable Therapy. (Photo courtesy of Bendable Therapy)

Armbrust believes that psilocybin can help a wide range of people. But a key concern for her is that it’s not accessible at an affordable price point yet. Hansen of Uptown Fungus shares Armbrust’s concern.

“It’s really difficult for people to afford right now,” says Hansen. “All of the overhead that’s in place for all of the various different companies in the industry means that the end user is paying an awful lot of money to have an experience.” 

A driving goal of Measure 109 was to make psilocybin something that is “a safe, accessible and affordable option” for age-appropriate clients who might benefit from using psilocybin. It’s not there yet. In this first year, the costs are too high for many people.

This is partly because, in Oregon, everyone in the industry becomes certified—manufacturers, testing centers, service centers and facilitators, who are with clients during their experience. Psilocybin itself isn’t expensive, but the licensing fees, taxes and the amount of time each client spends receiving service—a preparation session beforehand, an integration session afterward and several hours for the actual experience (or days, at some service centers)—mean that the costs of experiencing psilocybin at a service center quickly become expensive. Those costs are currently typically between $1,000 and $3,000 but can go as high as $15,000.

“I really try to work with the service centers and ask them number one not to mark up product ever, because I feel like the services are already incredibly expensive,” says Armbrust. “And it’s important for me that everybody can access this.”

Satya Therapeutics in Ashland, Oregon is currently the only business licensed to be both a manufacturer of psilocybin and a service center. Jennifer and Andreas Met operate both halves of their business in separate locations, due to zoning/county restrictions.

“This is a product that has been used for centuries by so many cultures before us,” says Jennifer. “And it can bring hope for individuals that are suffering or want to move forward and want to move forward with something that’s non-toxic and non-addictive.”

In Oregon, the actual facilitated psilocybin experience begins with a preparation session. In this meeting with a facilitator, the client discusses their intentions going into the experience, as well as what to expect. The facilitator stays with the client in the service center and keeps them safe but does not guide the experience of being in an altered state. Afterward, clients attend an integration session, wherein they process the experience with the facilitator.

At Satya Therapeutics, some facilitators will offer their services on a sliding scale. Full-price clients can help offset the cost for others. OHA requires that service centers come up with and document a social equity plan.

“You have to, as a facilitator, as a service center, be putting money aside for social equity,” says Jennifer. 

A session room at a service center sponsored by Bendable Therapy. (Photo courtesy of Bendable Therapy)

Decriminalization

The strictly facilitated model is not the only way to envision psilocybin access; community-based ceremony, the ability to experience psilocybin around members of your own community, is preferable to many groups and cultures. Some advocates say that legalization without decriminalization makes community-based sharing less accessible.

In tandem with Measure 109, Oregon also passed Measure 110 to decriminalize psilocybin. Decriminalization is different than legalization—decriminalization means that the act is still illegal but that a person would not be prosecuted for it. Oregon and Colorado both passed legalization and decriminalization bills, but Oregon’s decriminalization bill is more restrictive—it decriminalized the possession of small amounts of psilocybin. 

“I think the most important thing that happened in Oregon, that kind of took some of the grassroots, people-oriented, community-based healing out of the equation was that it’s still a felony to grow mushrooms,” says Larry Norris, Ph.D., co-founder and board member for Decriminalize Nature. “And it’s still a felony to pick a mushroom out of the ground.”

It’s also a criminal offense to share psilocybin in Oregon. Colorado, which is still in the planning phase, decriminalized cultivation and sharing.

“[Oregon] had really a lot of restrictions in the decriminalization bill,” says Norris. “So, it really kind of forces people into the 109 process, which is pretty expensive.”

Decriminalize Nature started in 2018 with a group of people in Oakland. They were able to get before the city council and help introduce a resolution to decriminalize four categories of plants and mushrooms, including mushrooms containing psilocybin. Today, there are Decriminalize Nature chapters across the country, working at the city level to remove the criminal penalties associated with psilocybin. Psilocybin, and other natural substances, often get pigeonholed by certain words such as medicinal or recreational. But Norris recommends a more holistic lens and an emphasis on helping people rather than profiteering. 

“It kind of really grew pretty quickly,” says Norris. “I think a lot of people were excited. They really wanted to have a conversation about nature and our relationship with nature.”

Don’t say medicinal

When Oregon’s Measure 109 was initially introduced, there was a lot of talk about how research has shown the many mental health benefits of a psilocybin experience. But you do not need a prescription to access psilocybin services—the experience is open to anyone who pays the fees and meets the criteria set by OHA. Service center clients are required to sign an acknowledgment that they recognize they are not receiving medical or clinical services. And as a federally designated Schedule One drug, psilocybin services are not covered by insurance.

“We were sold Measure 109 as psilocybin-assisted therapy,” says Ryan Reid, co-founder of Bendable Therapy and president of Drop Thesis, the latter of which is a service center. But now service centers must be careful how they frame it.

What this means is that it can be confusing for Oregonians to understand if and how a psilocybin experience could benefit them. This is the need that Bendable Therapy addresses. Bendable Therapy is a navigation center, screening people and matching them with facilitators and service centers that can help meet their needs through psilocybin, if appropriate. 

A service center sponsored by Bendable Therapy. (Photo courtesy of Bendable Therapy)

Licensed service centers and facilitators can’t advertise psilocybin as a medical or clinical treatment. Bendable Therapy coordinators, by contrast, aren’t licensed facilitators and therefore can provide education and explanation. “That’s another benefit of these coordination services, is they get to actually educate and be the voice on what this is and isn’t,” says Reid.

Colorado plans to start accepting license applications for psilocybin manufacturing and administration in late 2024. Representatives from the state have been in close contact with those involved in Oregon’s rollout to learn what works well and what could be different. Other states are likely to follow suit—Massachusetts voters may see a psilocybin measure on their ballots soon. While the legal frameworks are not homogenous, more communities in the country are asking how to make psilocybin-containing mushrooms, which have been growing naturally in the environment for the longest time, accessible to more people without risk of penalty.

At Bendable Therapy, they attract people who are on an existing mental health path, says Reid. Their clients have been working on a condition such as PTSD or depression and are now feeling stuck. Along with their health provider, they want to try psilocybin as a way to get unstuck. 

“It is such a good tool in support of the existing mental health system,” says Reid. “I’m excited about that.”

The post Manufacturing Psilocybin isn’t Difficult. Building a Legal Industry Is. appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Some of these fungi pose threats—to humans, animals or  plants. Mostly traveling via spores, fungi can move from place to place easily, carried on an animal’s wing or the sole of a shoe. Then, once in the right conditions, fungi spread. They can infect a variety of species, recently causing problems for bananas, coffee and chocolate.  

And we could be next. 

“Over the past century,” Monosson writes, “fungal infections have caused catastrophic losses in other species, but so far [humans] have been lucky. Our luck may be running out.” 

For many species of fungi, climate change is propelling their spread and aiding their ability to infect potential hosts. We spoke with Monosson about the dangers that fungi pose to humans and our food supply and what we can do about it. 

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Emily Monosson. Photography courtesy of W. W. Norton & Company

Modern Farmer: It feels like mushrooms and fungi are having a bit of a moment in pop culture, with Netflix documentaries and The Last of Us. 

Emily Monosson: Talk about timing! Because of both the pandemic and The Last of Us, that’s brought a lot of attention to the dark side of fungi. There’s been a lot of good stuff about fungus and for good reason. I mean, the fungal kingdom is really important to everything—how we live, how we grow food…

MF: Right, you talk in the book about how fungus can be helpful or harmful, and one interesting example in agriculture is bananas. Can you expand on what happened with bananas and fungal infection? 

EM: Well, in the 1950s or 1960s, we started eating the Cavendish banana, which is what we all think of as the banana. And yes, there are lots of different kinds of edible bananas, but we rely on the Cavendish. And before the Cavendish, there was the Gros Michel banana. That banana was impacted by a fungus that’s now called TR1, which pretty much threatened to wipe out the banana industry. And so, [the industry] turned to the Cavendish banana and started growing that.

MF: The problem is when we lost the Gros Michel, we had fields and fields and hectares and hectares of this banana that got wiped out. And now, we’ve replicated that process with the Cavendish, which is a little mind blowing.

EM: It is. So, the Cavendish was resistant to that TR1 one fungus, which is great. But, pathogenic fungi, if they are spore-producing fungi, some of those spores are really resilient, and they can live in the soil for maybe decades. So, once a plantation becomes infected, you can’t grow those kinds of bananas there anymore. The crop needs to be grown somewhere else. There’s no treatment for it except for maybe flooding the plantation. 

Now, a newer fungi, TR4, is spreading to many of the banana-growing regions, and it is killing the Cavendish banana plants. I went to a place in Costa Rica that was growing bananas; Costa Rica does not have this TR4 yet, and they’re just terrified of that fungus making it into Costa Rica. And so, there’s very strict regulations about taking banana plant parts into places. When you go to the airport, there are big signs that [warn against bringing in bananas].

But scientists who study these fungi think that the reason this has spread is that bananas are cloned [meaning there’s no genetic variation or immunity to TR4 that can pop up]. It’s hard to understand how this can happen to that degree again, that it’s threatening most of the Cavendish banana industry, because of how much was known about how the fungus travels.

So, one of the solutions is to just broaden our palate, maybe think about eating other kinds of bananas, and be a little bit more open to buying a small banana or red banana or blue banana. 

MF: Let’s talk about those spores that can live in the soil. As you say in the book, once a fungus shows up, there’s virtually no getting away from it. How long does that period last? Is it possible to wait out a fungus?

EM: It’s complicated. A single fungus can produce many different types of spores. Some of them are short-lived, and they have to land on their host. And if they don’t land on their host, they’ll just die. But some of them, like some of the spores from TR4, can apparently live for decades. That’s a big problem. Those will not go away, and when their favorite host returns, then they will germinate and grow. 

I also wrote about bats, which are susceptible to fungal infections, too. Scientists believe that the spores that infect bats drop off onto the cave floor when the bats fly out. And then, as the bats fly around, they clear the fungus from their bodies. But when the bats return, the spores are still on the cave floor, and they get reinfected each time they return to their hibernacula.

MF: Throughout the book, you talk about different fungal pandemics, including the banana and bat examples we just talked about. You mention fruit and nut trees, row crops, frogs and salamanders. You mention that it’s a bit of luck we haven’t seen a widespread fungal pandemic in humans yet, but our luck could be running out. Why is that?

EM: That partly comes from Candida auris, a yeast that sort of emerged around 2016. It tends to infect people who are already compromised in some way; it runs through hospitals, long-term care facilities, and [it] impacts people who are immunocompromised. It also seemed to emerge around the world and many different places. There were five different strains of this fungus that seem to all emerge at once. And so, the question is, how would that happen? Why would that happen? It wasn’t like COVID, where you could trace to see how one strain evolved into others.

One of the hypotheses about how it emerged is that it was a fungus that was probably living in the environment, as most of them do, and making its living there. And then, as the environment has warmed a bit, it evolved to tolerate warmer temperatures. For humans, our body temperature tends to protect us from fungal pathogens, because they can’t tolerate it. So, what the thinking with Candida auris is, maybe it evolved to eventually be able to make the jump into humans and live in our body temperature and infect us. So, that’s one example of what could happen with the changing climate—more fungi that are living out in the environment might be able to grow in our bodies. 

One thing that I would say, though, is that something like The Last of Us, a real pervasive fungal pandemic that’s everywhere and can infect humans, most scientists would say that’s probably pretty unlikely. We’re not going to suffer what bats or frogs or, you know, chestnut trees have experienced.

MF: Obviously, a show or video game like The Last of Us is fiction. But what does separate us from bats and trees and salamanders?

EM: That’s a really good question. One thing is that it’s rare for a fungus to spread from person to person; they’re not as transmissible. In The Last of Us, the fungal spores got into the food, and that’s how people were exposed. But to have a spore-producing fungus able to infect humans and be everywhere all at once, it’s harder to do. 

MF: What about fungicide? How big a role could or should they play?

EM: Well, fungicide wouldn’t help soil-borne fungi, because it comes up through the roots, where you can’t apply fungicide. If it’s on the surface, then spraying a fungicide could be helpful. 

MF: What about gene editing or other forms of fighting against the fungi?

EM: I did interview one scientist who has been working on modifying bananas so that they can resist the TR4 disease. He’s gone about it in two different ways: One is to insert a gene from other bananas into the Cavendish banana that can resist the fungus. That would be a cisgenic process, taking from one banana and putting it into another banana. The other thing that he’s doing is to see if those resistance genes are in the banana but they’re silent or not turned on. So, that’s where gene editing might come in, to see if you can basically flip the switch on those genes and have them activated. 

MF: What about legislation or governmental policy? 

EM: When plants are imported in for us to buy, there are rules, they are inspected. Some would like to see increased certifications or inspections made mandatory. But unless there’s really good rapid diagnostics, some of the diseases are hard to identify. 

The ideal test would be able to take a swab of something and identify lots of different pathogens on it, and do it rapidly, because then a plant could either be certified that it’s clean and disease free. I wrote about a program in the US where nurseries are working with different state departments to ensure that the plants that they’re selling are certified as disease free as possible. So, you know, that’s something that if consumers look for that certification and encourage that kind of thing, then plant growers will be more aware of trying to do that. 

I think the bigger problem is really in the animal world, because we don’t have as many regulations and certifications and even inspectors for animals in trade as we do for plants.

MF: There was a section where you were talking about just the sheer number of animals that pass in and out of the United States. With all of those animals traveling through the country, some escape is inevitable. 

EM: Yeah, and the thinking is that’s how some of the fungal pathogens affecting wildlife have happened. So, there’s a movement to better control the animal trade.

For certain kinds of animals, there’s really no regulation that they need to be disease free. What some of the scientists that I talked to are trying to do is to just keep those animals from entering the country, to reduce the animal trade, but not being able to do that. They’ve been working with the Fish and Wildlife Service to figure out how best to reduce the potential for that to happen.

MF: What about the immediate big picture? You end the book by saying that looking critically at things like monocropping is our moral obligation. What do you make of that both on a community level and an individual level? How do we act within that system? Most people don’t grow bananas or have any control over the banana industry. So, how do we live within that moral obligation?

EM: It’s hard. You want to have solutions at the end of a book like this. And it’s often very hard for individuals to do something. If enough consumers demand something or are open to something, then there’s the potential that maybe the industry will respond. 

Look at all the different kinds of grains we eat now. I mean, that was probably unheard of how many years ago? That is a hopeful thing. Making many types of grains available is mainstream now. That could happen in something like bananas. We could demand and be open to lots of different kinds of bananas, which might move them away from the big monocrop Cavendish that we have now.

The other thing we as individuals can do is while we travel, when you see that sign that says ‘Don’t bring banana anything into this country,’ don’t do it. Don’t shove it in your pocketbook and think that you’re getting away with something, because what you could be doing is carrying the next pandemic.

The post Fungi Are Coming For Us appeared first on Modern Farmer.

A prized pre-Hispanic ingredient in Mexico, huitlacoche is a bluish-gray fungus that grows on corn kernels and causes them to swell into bulbous masses, usually after rainy seasons. The ingredient’s seasonality, as well as the way it originates from corn, has made huitlacoche a treasured food and a symbol of bounty in Mexican culture. “Corn was the food of the gods and allowed the Aztecs to flourish,” explains Aboumrad. “When huitlacoche came out, it was like a gift from the gods.”

Huitlacoche quesadillas served at the restaurant Xochi. Photography by Paula Murphy

With its deeply earthy, smoky flavor, the tender, spongy ingredient is considered a culinary delicacy in Mexico. Vendors on the streets of Mexico City fold huitlacoche into blue corn tortillas to make quesadillas, while home cooks might add the ingredient to sauces and soups, fold it into tacos or wrap it inside tamales. Hugo Ortega, the chef behind the Houston restaurant Xochi, especially enjoys the rich flavor of huitlacoche when sautéed with eggs, a recipe he learned as a boy while living with his grandmother in Acatlán de Osorio, a city in the east-central Mexican state of Puebla. “The silkiness and earthiness,” he says, “it’s delicious.” Thanks to its high protein and fatty acid contents, huitlacoche is also regarded as a nutrient-rich food with medicinal properties. The spores, though, are highly dependent on optimal weather and soil conditions. “Its scarcity creates a naturally higher price point,” says Jorge Gaviria, cookbook author and founder of masa company Masienda. 

In the US, fresh huitlacoche is even harder to find. When corn farmers spot the fungus growing in their fields, many farmers—unacquainted with its cultural significance south of the border—consider it a scourge, and they destroy the affected crops. Deliberate cultivation of huitlacoche isn’t easy either, says Aboumrad, as much of the corn grown domestically is genetically modified to be fungus-resistant. “It’s not like you can just inoculate a field and it’s going to take,” she explains. 

Although rare, huitlacoche does appear in some farmers markets in the US (Ortega finds it at Azteca Farmers Market in Houston), especially as more growers become aware of its culinary value and cultural importance. Jeremy Umansky, the chef and owner of Cleveland’s Larder Delicatessen and Bakery, now obtains a steady supply of huitlacoche ever since he approached the Amish corn farmers at the North Union Farmers Market and shared with them his interest in the fungus, the price he was willing to pay (up to $1.50 per ear wholesale) and best storage practices to prevent spoilage. “Imagine if farmers in America weren’t conditioned to think that huitlacoche was bad,” says Umansky. “The sheer volume of fungicides that we would stop using, and the amount of money that farmers could bank, is massive.”

Raw huitlacoche. Photography by Jeffrey Ehrenberg

Even importing huitlacoche from Mexico to the US has its hurdles. “Once you have it, you only have a few days to use it,” explains Ricardo Olvera, Aboumrad’s business partner. Huitlacoche is largely cultivated in Puebla and Oaxaca, located in Mexico’s central and southern regions, respectively. That makes for a long journey to the US with a highly perishable fungus. 

But it can be done. After finally finding a steady and reliable supplier in Oaxaca and in Puebla, Aboumrad and Olvera launched a company devoted to importing the ingredient—Huitla. To prevent spoilage, the team immediately refrigerates every shipment upon its arrival in the US, then quickly ships the orders directly to customers. 

While Aboumrad enjoys traditional huitlacoche preparations of her native Mexico, “I’m more interested in seeing what a modern application of huitlacoche looks like,” she says, recalling a recent dinner she ate at Taco María in Costa Mesa, California, where chef Carlos Salgado served a nutty, savory huitlacoche butter alongside blue cornbread. 

Plenty of other new and unexpected applications are showing up in restaurant kitchens from coast to coast. Osito in San Francisco has featured cuttlefish with lacto-fermented huitlacoche sauce on its tasting menu. Umansky’s Larder has topped poutine with a huitlacoche-based gravy. Ortega’s Xochi offers a dish he calls huitlasquites, a corn soup starring the velvety Mexican delicacy. Chef Lawrence Smith’s Mexican-inspired restaurant Chilte in Phoenix, Arizona incorporates the fungus into a pasta dish with mezcal-scented beurre blanc, goat cheese and smoked ant salt.

Huitlacoche pasta served at the restaurant Chilte. Photography courtesy of Chilte.

Researchers are investigating how to optimize huitlacoche’s cultivation in Mexico and the US. Commercial and culinary interest in the fungus is mounting both in and outside its country of origin, as driving forces such as travel, social media and migration “allow us to experience and access cultures in ways that we’ve never had before,” says Gaviria. However people use huitlacoche, he believes that, as more people respectfully adopt ingredients from different cultures into their lives, even in non-traditional applications, the more cultural recognition and awareness will develop around different cuisines. Smith agrees, pointing out that, “as we open our minds and palates, we can destigmatize ‘exotic’ foods.”

While the growing availability of huitlacoche is certainly related to chefs’ interest in the ingredient, there’s also “a mushroom craze going on right now,” says Olvera. Aboumrad recalls that lion’s mane was not popular several years ago, and many of the chefs she approached weren’t interested. “Now, you see it at every Whole Foods. You see supplements with mushrooms in it,” she says. This excitement could make way for more varieties of fungi like huitlacoche to find their way onto restaurant menus and into home kitchens across the US.

The Mexican delicacy is far from being a plague, adds Olvera. “It’s just this beautiful transformation of corn.”

The post Huitlacoche, a Mexican Fungus, is Popping Up On Restaurant Menus Across the US appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Garrett Kopp with foraged chaga. Photography courtesy of Kopp.

You’d be forgiven if you’ve never heard of chaga—the parasitic fungus isn’t exactly well known outside of wildcrafting communities. It infects many species of trees, most notably birch, and erupts as a crusty black mass of hardened fungal hyphae (called a sclerotia). It’s not exactly the traditional muse of poets and painters looking to nature for inspiration. Found in boreal forests and sub-arctic forests in Canada, parts of the US, Siberia, Scandinavia and other suitably cold climates, chaga has featured prominently in the folk medicine of various northern cultures. The fungus is now enjoying a renaissance of sorts in North America as interest in functional foods and adaptogens intensifies. A quick perusal of Amazon reveals a staggering amount of chaga products: tea, tinctures, powders, chunks and capsules.

But what does science say? Is chaga deserving of all the recent praise? The answer is an unsatisfying “maybe.” A 2010 study found that chaga extracts reduced glucose levels in diabetic mice by up to 36 percent. Another study exploring antioxidant effects showed cells pre-treated with chaga had 40 percent less oxidative damage from free radicals than cells that were not treated. A 2022 study investigated the anti-inflammatory properties of chaga and found a new extraction method reduced nitric oxide production, which can spur inflammatory disorders, by 58 percent.

The most intriguing finding, however, is chaga’s anti-tumor activity. Numerous studies have demonstrated chaga’s ability to destroy different types of cancer cells (i.e., sarcoma, lung adenocarcinoma, colon cancer, melanoma and bladder cancer). But without large-scale human trials, its ultimate clinical effectiveness remains unknown. 

However, by the time we have sufficient evidence to evaluate its clinical benefits, chaga may be a scarce commodity. Many are worried that increasing market demands are putting excessive pressure on this natural resource. 

Disconcertingly, we don’t have a good understanding of current distribution or population trends. Experts do know that chaga contributes to important nutrient recycling and carbon sequestration, and mycology experts fear we are  harvesting large quantities of this organism without understanding the long-term ecological impact. 

When it comes to chaga harvesting, sustainability is complicated by a number of factors. Chaga is very slow growing and takes decades to form reproductive structures. But harvesting only occurs in the pre-reproductive form, meaning foragers take the fungus before it’s had a chance to produce spores. 

“Timber-centric” foresters also endanger chaga—placing little value on any part of the forest ecosystem outside of timber. Yellow birch trees infected with chaga (considered a parasite that ruins the timber value) are targeted for destruction. This year, Birch Boys managed to intervene and salvage 500 pounds of chaga from birch before they were decimated, but that’s only because they’ve established a personal relationship with one of the foresters. Kopp says many people aren’t aware that logging and deforestation threaten chaga populations. 

Photography by Shutterstock.

In the Adirondacks, Kopp estimates they’re 10 to 12 years away from a real chaga shortage, but he’s hopeful efforts to wild-farm chaga will change that trajectory. Birch trees can be inoculated with chaga by drilling holes in the trunk and inserting dowels with live chaga mycelium. KÄÄPÄ Forest, a Finnish company, is doing just that—creating the largest chaga cultivation network in the world. After researching and testing dozens of mushroom strains to optimize germination and growth speed, the company has started signing cultivation contracts with farmers in Finland, promising to buy the chaga back from these farmers at the agreed market price when it is harvested. This requires a lot of patience—farmers can expect to wait 10 years before harvesting their crop. KÄÄPÄ Forest expects its first crop in 2028 and estimates a harvest of 11,000 pounds. By 2031, yields are expected to rise to 141,000 pounds with estimated sales of $8.5 million. 

Eric Puro serves on the board of the International Medicinal Mushrooms Society and is the CEO of KÄÄPÄ. He sees chaga cultivation as an important conservation effort and says it also offers ecological benefits such as increasing forest diversity and carbon sequestration. “Low-yield birch trees that would normally be thinned will remain in the forest,” he says. According to Puro, Metsähallitus (the Finnish Forest Administration) believes that KÄÄPÄ’s chaga cultivation forests will sequester about 50,000 tons of carbon annually. 

Finland is the only country in the world tackling the problem of overharvesting at a national level. The government issues harvesting permits and only allows foraging in areas deemed ecologically stable. Regulations stipulate that  Finland can sustainably harvest about 44,000 pounds of wild-foraged chaga per year—“a drop in the bucket,” according to Puro, who estimates global chaga consumption to be at least one billion pounds per year.  

Back in the Adirondacks, Kopp is eagerly looking for land partners and has a lease agreement in hand. Birch Boys is venturing into cultivation and needs access to birch trees. Like Puro, he believes wild farming—and diversification of land management as a whole—will play an important role in chaga’s future. 

The post As Chaga Keeps Trending, Mycologists Worry About Running Out appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Now, some experts in the field are saying it might be too late to prevent the mushroom from overtaking American forests. 

“You will never outrun a fungus ever. The fungus is going to win. We don’t even know what measures we are going to take to abate the quantity that’s out there. It’s either going to find balance or take over,” says Tavis Lynch, chairman of the cultivation committee for the North American Mycological Association. Lynch cultivates a wide range of mushrooms for retail sale on his farm in Cumberland, WI, and he says he initially spotted golden oysters in the forest in 2014. Lynch grew golden oysters for years, but once he saw them in the woods, he stopped growing them, even though they are a big draw for customers at farmers markets. 

“I didn’t want to be the guy who is responsible for the golden oyster. We had our strains sequenced, and they are not the strains that are the escapees,” says Lynch, who also authored the book Mushroom Cultivation. “Why did this one batch escape? That’s the big mystery.”

There are several theories and legends in the fungi community about how the golden oyster escaped; a fire on a commercial mushroom farm in Iowa, a flood of a mushroom farm in the Hudson Valley and a tornado on a farm in Ohio. Some armchair mycophiles suggested the golden oyster could be following the path of the Emerald Ash Borer through the United States because of how it thrives on dead wood. 

However, ecologists say the introduction of the golden oyster could have been something as simple as an improperly discarded mushroom grow kit or spent substrate that was left outside. 

Dr. Greg Thorn is a professor of Biology at Western University in London, ON, with a focus on carnivorous mushrooms. Thorn says that for early mushroom cultivators there wasn’t much consideration that the spores would escape. “If you crumble up the grow kit after it stops producing for you, it would likely be taken over by the molds and bacteria in the compost itself. But If you toss it out in a backyard as a lump, it may fool you and produce mushrooms outdoors.”

There are no clear guidelines on the disposal of mushroom grow kits and throwing it in the trash or compost is common practice. 

“At this moment, we don’t have any single narrative about how the golden oyster escaped into the wild. There are lots of stories,” says Dr. Anne Pringle, a professor of botany University of Madison, WI. Pringle’s lab focuses on changing biodiversity of nonpathogenic microbes, such as fungi moved by humans across Earth. “There is no well-documented data about the escape of the golden oyster, but even if something as small as a grow kit was left to mature outside, it can introduce the fungi to a new environment.”

Andi Bruce on a mushroom foray. Photography by Andi Bruce.

Many in the mycology community cite Andi Bruce’s master’s thesis as one of the strongest datasets for understanding the golden oyster introduction. In the summer of 2017, Bruce was on her weekly foray in the forests of La-Crosse, WI, hoping to fill her basket with chicken of the woods, hedgehog mushrooms, mulberries and raspberries, when she spotted a mushroom she had never seen in the wild. It was unmistakable; the golden oyster was growing wild. Bruce, a Master’s student at the University of Wisconsin, La-Crosse at the time, started posting online wondering if anyone else had also seen the clusters of golden oyster mushrooms in the forest. Bruce then began using whole-genome sequencing to gain insights into the introduction and spread of naturalized golden oysters in the United States. She analyzed 29 wild golden oyster mushroom specimens collected across six states and used six commercially cultivated isolates. Bruce found that some of the cultivated strains became the founders of the naturalized populations of golden oyster mushrooms but that the isolates of cultivated strains of golden oyster had no clear geographic pattern. “In other words, lots of people probably got their hands on the same or similar commercial strains, perhaps to grow them outdoors, and those golden oysters escaped multiple times over,” says Bruce. 

According to Pringle, there is currently no peer-reviewed study of the golden oyster mushroom. In 2022, the Pringle Lab began research on how the golden oyster can impact carbon cycles of the forest, which can contribute to climate change. 

As a white rot fungus, the golden oyster is a powerful decomposer of wood and often found growing on hardwood trees such as elm, oak and ash. Aishwarya Veerabahu, a PhD student studying impacts of the golden oyster at the University of Wisconsin, Madison says there is anecdotal evidence that the fungus can take down dead standing trees much faster (around 5 years) than native decomposing mushrooms, compromising essential habitats for insects and birds. Veerabahu’s dissertation will study the growing concern around how the golden oyster is displacing native North American oyster mushrooms and has the potential to outcompete other fungi and change forest ecosystems. 

“Humans have dropped a fungal bomb by bringing in a species that’s unknown to the area and unknown to the ecosystem,” says Melissa Klotka, president of the Wisconsin Mycological Society. “We encourage people to [forage] as much as they want when it comes to an invasive species like the golden oyster.” 

Those invested in better understanding the golden oyster have words of advice for at-home cultivators, whether cracking open a golden oyster grow kit or starting to cultivate from spawn and fruiting blocks. 

“Many people who would not consider it ethical to garden with invasive plants think it’s perfectly acceptable to let non-native mushrooms grow outside. If exotic mushrooms are placed outdoors, they will release spores into the air [that] escape into local forests,” says Pringle, who encourages small-scale cultivators to grow native fungi.

Photography by Shutterstock.

Researchers say it’s also important to be mindful of how you dispose of the fruiting blocks to avoid introducing non-native species into an environment. Thorn recommends that growing kits be limited to local and native species of fungi. When growing non-native species, see if there are sporeless varieties, such as a Japanese version of the Golden Oyster, which was created to prevent allergies. “Treat the spent grow-block as a biohazard—crumble finely and spread on lawn or in garden or in a composter. If you grow them in an apartment, break up the spent block and feed it to your worm composter,” says Thorn. 

Lynch adds that it would be wise not to grow certain types of oyster mushrooms near wood, including inside your house or on furniture because the spores can spread and cause problems down the line. 

Andi Bruce, who wrote her thesis on the mushroom, advises people to stay away from growing the golden oyster altogether. “For folks interested in growing mushrooms at home, I’d encourage them to propagate the native varieties of edible mushrooms already present in their area, rather than buying a grow kit online and risk introducing a non-native genotype.” 

The post Is Your Favorite New Mushroom Eradicating Native Mushroom Species? appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Colorful paintings by local artists hang on the walls. There are reference books such as “Medicinal Mushrooms: An Essential Guide” and recipes for dishes such as Smoky Spanish Style Oyster Mushrooms. A stuffed gnome sits on a window sill. 

The refrigerated display case is where buyers can find Collar City’s crop: the specialty mushrooms produced in its three climate-controlled grow rooms.  

Each room houses vertical racks, lined with brown blocks of substrate that provide the nutrition and energy mushrooms require to grow and fruit. Just 320 square feet in total, the grow rooms yield approximately 150 pounds of mushrooms per week. At any given moment, a half-dozen different kinds of mushrooms are in production.  

“We have mountains of mushrooms right now,” Avery Stempel, owner of Collar City, informs a customer eyeing the oyster, shiitake, lion’s mane and king trumpets in the case. “Want me to put a mix together?” 

Avery Stempel, co-owner of Collar City Mushrooms, shows off some of the mushrooms in his grow room. Photography by Sara Foss.

Collar City, established in 2020 by Stempel and his partner, Amy Hood, is premised on the idea that to know mushrooms is to love them. However, most Americans need a better introduction to the wide diversity of edible fungi species, many of which can be found in their own backyards. Stempel and Hood, for instance, began loving mushrooms through foraging. 

“I would go to the forest, and finding that splash of color, the mysterious mushroom that just suddenly appeared, was always fascinating to me,” says Stempel. “When Amy and I got together, one of the things that connected us was our phones were filled with pictures of mushrooms.” After the two dated for a little while, they began talking about starting a mushroom farm. 

It was mostly a pipe dream —until Stempel was furloughed from his job at a performing arts center early in the pandemic. “I thought, ‘Maybe this is the catalyst I need to start the mushroom farm,’” he says. 

Now, Collar City is selling mushrooms to about 20 restaurants and has plans to double its operations, to 300 pounds from 150 pounds per week in 2023. Other goals include building a grow room in the basement, a bar and a stage for performances and a commercial kitchen. 

In starting their company, Stempel and Hood were ahead of the mushroom curve. The New York Times declared the mushroom 2022’s ingredient of the year, observing that the number of “small urban farms growing mushrooms is expected to bloom.” The buzz was warranted, but most of the mushrooms consumed in the U.S. still come from a single, commercially produced species, Agaricus bisporus. These mushrooms take several forms familiar to anyone who eats pizza or salad: button, brown and portobello. 

Specialty mushrooms—defined as any mushroom not belonging to the genus Agaricus—are a small but emerging niche, one that Stempel and others hope to cultivate and usher into the mainstream. 

Steve Gabriel, specialty mushrooms and agroforestry specialist for the Cornell Small Farms Program in central New York, began teaching outdoor growers to cultivate shiitake mushrooms about a decade ago. Interest skyrocketed, and Cornell began working with indoor farmers about two years ago, in response to grower demand. “People kept asking about it,” says Gabriel. 

“People are super-hyped for specialty mushrooms,” says Devon Gilroy, owner of Tivoli Mushrooms in the small city of Hudson, N.Y., about 50 miles south of Troy. “The problem is that the mushrooms you see at the grocery store are dying in little plastic bags.” 

Established six years ago in a former chair factory on the banks of the Hudson River, Tivoli Mushrooms is in the midst of a major expansion. The farm currently produces about 1,000 pounds of mushrooms per week. A larger building will enable Tivoli to exponentially boost production, to between 12,000 to 15,000 pounds of mushrooms per week. “Nobody in New York State is going all in on specialty mushrooms like we are,” says Gilroy, who sells to restaurants, markets and apothecaries. 

Gilroy is also looking to tap into the booming market for what’s known as “functional mushrooms,” coveted for benefits such as enhanced immunity, better brain function and relief from inflammation, and a key ingredient in wellness products such as powders and teas. He recently launched a sister company, Go Mushrooms, that manufactures medicinal tinctures.

California and Pennsylvania are the biggest producers of U.S. mushrooms, with the Keystone State accounting for 66% of the total volume of sales, according to the USDA. Still, New York growers are optimistic about New York’s potential to become a bigger player, specifically in the specialty market.  

They point to the state’s abundance of protected forests, where conditions for outdoor growing on inoculated logs are ideal, and the possibilities opened up by indoor, vertical farming. Especially well positioned to tap into the burgeoning appetite for gourmet mushrooms in New York City and the lower Hudson Valley are farmers in the eastern part of the state. 

“If you can grow mushrooms, you can sell them,” says Gabriel. “It’s not hard. There’s a demand.” 

The value of sales for commercially grown specialty mushrooms jumped 32% in 2021-2022, to $87.3 million, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. This surge occurred even as the value of the Agaricus crop, estimated at $931 million, fell 7% from the previous season. 

Gabriel estimates that there are at least 500 specialty mushroom growers in the U.S., with about 100 in New York, but it’s tough for many of them to enter the business full time. It’s also difficult to get an accurate picture of how many people are growing specialty mushrooms, because of the USDA’s focus on larger farms in select states.  

“The vast majority of folks are doing this as a side hustle,” says Gabriel. “Most of the farms down in Pennsylvania are grossing $1 million a year or more. That’s very different from the audience we’re working with at Cornell.” About one-quarter of the farmers surveyed by Cornell “produce over 100 pounds of mushrooms a week, and the rest produce under 100 pounds. It’s bringing in income, but it’s not $1 million a year.”

The stock at Collar City Mushrooms is dried or kept refrigerated for customers. Photography by Sara Foss.

In 2012, Gabriel started his own mushroom farm, Wellspring Forest Farm, in New York’s Finger Lakes region. In the beginning, he grew shiitake in the woods, putting into practice the agroforestry practices he espoused at Cornell and in classes offered at Wellspring. When robust demand for his mushrooms sparked thoughts of expansion, he realized the best way to scale up was indoors. Now Wellspring produces oysters, lion’s mane and king oyster mushrooms in a building constructed for that purpose. 

“There were only so many logs we could schlep around,” says Gabriel. “If you really want to make a sizable income from mushroom growing, it’s a much easier transition if you have some indoor capacity.”

From his vantage point at the Cornell Small Farms Program, Gabriel sees big things ahead for specialty mushrooms. In New York, the increase in the number of growers has outpaced other states. But whether the state becomes known for specialty mushroom production depends in part on whether its agricultural leaders find ways to make it easier for would-be growers to get started and expand, such as loosening the rules around turning fresh mushrooms into value-added products such as powders or foods. 

“In some states, like Maine and Vermont, you can do a lot of that stuff in your kitchen, until you gross more than $10,000 in sales or sell more than 100,000 units,” says Gabriel. “If I want to dry my mushrooms, I’ve got to rent a commercial kitchen and dry them there.” 

“The grower interest is there,” says Gabriel, adding that, with state-supported regulations, the community will continue to expand. “We have another several decades of being on the upswing of the curve.”

The post Could New York Become the Mushroom State? appeared first on Modern Farmer.

It’s no secret that Earth’s biodiversity is at risk. According to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, 26 percent of all mammals, 14 percent of birds and 41 percent of amphibians are currently threatened worldwide, mainly due to human impacts such as climate change and development.

Other forms of life are also under pressure, but they are harder to count and assess. Some scientists have warned of mass insect die-offs, although others say the case hasn’t been proved. And then there are fungi—microbes that often go unnoticed, with an estimated 2 million to 4 million species. Fewer than 150,000 fungi have received formal scientific descriptions and classifications.

If you enjoy bread, wine or soy sauce, or have taken penicillin or immunosuppressant drugs, thank fungi, which make all of these products possible. Except for baker’s yeast and button mushrooms, most fungi remain overlooked and thrive hidden in the dark and damp. But scientists agree that they are valuable organisms worth protecting.

As mycologists whose biodiversity work includes studying fungi that interact with millipedes, plants, mosquitoes and true bugs, we have devoted our careers to understanding the critical roles fungi play. These relationships can be beneficial, harmful or neutral for the fungus’s partner organism. But it’s not an overstatement to say that without fungi breaking down dead matter and recycling its nutrients, life on Earth would be unrecognizable.

Bracket fungi growing on a tree. Photo by Mark Castiglia, Shutterstock.

Healthy ecosystems need fungi

The amazing biological fungal kingdom includes everything from bracket fungi, molds and yeasts to mushrooms and more. Fungi are not plants, although they’re usually stocked near fresh produce in grocery stores. In fact, they’re more closely related to animals.

But fungi have some unique features that set them apart. They grow by budding or as long, often branching, threadlike tubes. To reproduce, fungi typically form spores, a stage for spreading and dormancy. Rather than taking food into their bodies to eat, fungi release enzymes onto their food to break it down and then absorb sugars that are released. The fungal kingdom is very diverse, so many fungi break the mold.

Fungi play essential ecological roles worldwide. Some have been forming critical partnerships with plant roots for hundreds of millions of years. Others break down dead plants and animals and return key nutrients to the soil so other life forms can use them.

RELATED: The Untapped Potential of Mushrooms

Fungi are among the few organisms that can degrade lignin, a main component of wood that gives plants their rigidity. Without fungi, our forests would be littered with huge piles of woody debris.

Still other fungi form unique mutualistic partnerships with insects. Flavodon ambrosius, a white rot decay fungus, not only serves as the primary source of nutrition for certain fungus-farming ambrosia beetles, but it also quickly out-competes other wood-colonizing fungi, which allows these beetles to build large, multigenerational communities. Similarly, leaf-cutter ants raise Leucoagaricus gongylophorus as food by gathering dead plant matter in their nests to feed their fungus partner.

A mostly unknown kingdom

We can only partially appreciate the benefits fungi provide, since scientists have a narrow and very incomplete view of the fungal kingdom. Imagine trying to assemble a 4-million-piece jigsaw puzzle with only 3 to 5 percent of the pieces. Mycologists struggle to formally describe Earth’s fungal biodiversity while simultaneously assessing various species’ conservation status and tracking losses.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species currently includes 551 fungi, compared to 58,343 plants and 12,100 insects. About 60 percent of these listed fungal species are gilled mushrooms or lichenized fungi, which represent a very narrow sampling of the fungal kingdom.

Asked what a fungus looks like, the average person will probably imagine a mushroom, which is partly correct. Mushrooms are “fruiting bodies,” or reproductive structures, that only certain fungi produce. But a majority of fungi don’t produce fruiting bodies that are visible to the eye, or any at all, so these “microfungi” go largely overlooked.

Many people see fungi as frightening or disgusting. Today, although positive interest in fungi is growing, species that cause diseases—such as chytrid fungus in amphibians and white-nose syndrome in bats—still receive more attention than fungi playing essential, beneficial roles in the environment.

Mushroom growing kits have grown in popularity in recent year. Photo by Miriam Doerr Martin Frommherz, Shutterstock.

Protecting our fungal future

Even with limited knowledge about the status of fungi, there is increasing evidence that climate change threatens them as much as it threatens plants, animals and other microbes. Pollution, drought, fire and other disturbances all are contributing to losses of precious fungi.

This isn’t just true on land. Recent studies of aquatic fungi, which play all kinds of important roles in rivers, lakes and oceans, have raised concerns that little is being done to conserve them.

It is hard to motivate people to care about something they do not know about or understand. And it’s difficult to establish effective conservation programs for organisms that are mysterious even to scientists. But people who care about fungi are trying. In addition to the IUCN Fungal Conservation Committee, which coordinates global fungal conservation initiatives, various nongovernment organizations and nonprofits advocate for fungi.

RELATED: Home Gardeners Discover the Fun of Growing Fungi

Over the past two years, we have seen a surge of public interest in all things fungal, from home grow kits and cultivation courses to increased enrollment in local mycological societies. We hope this newfound acceptance can benefit fungi, their habitats and people who study and steward them. One measure of success would be for people to ask not just whether a mushroom is poisonous or edible, but also whether it needs protection.

Delegations from most of the world’s countries will meet in China this fall for a major conference on protecting biodiversity. Their goal is to set international benchmarks for conserving life on Earth for years to come. Mycologists want the plan to include mushrooms, yeasts and molds.

Anyone who takes their curiosity outdoors can use community science platforms, such as iNaturalist, to report their observations of fungi and learn more. Joining a mycology club is a great way to learn how to find and harvest fungi responsibly, without overpicking or damaging their habitats.

Fungi are forming important networks and partnerships all around us in the environment, moving resources and information in all directions between soil, water and other living things. To us, they exemplify the power of connection and cooperation—valuable traits in this precarious phase of life on Earth.

Matt Kasson is an associate professor of mycology and plant pathology at West Virginia University; Brian Lovett is a postdoctoral researcher at West Virginia University; and Patricia Kaishian is a visiting assisting professor of biology at Bard College.

The post Opinion: It’s Time to Include Fungi in Conservation Goals appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Invasive, alien species are bad for ecosystems. They reduce biodiversity and disrupt food chains, including our own.

History is full of examples of intentional and unintentional introductions of invasive species. The introduction of cane toads to Northern Australia in the 1930s to fight cane beetles led to decline of many native predators. The fungus that causes chestnut blight snuck into North America via infected nursery stock; four billion trees died in 40 years.

It’s easy enough to see the devastation by invasive species of plants, just look your window: spotted knapweed, Eurasian milfoil and giant hogweed have completely changed communities across North America.

Soil ecosystems

What about creatures in the soil? Have they been affected by invasive species? Which species have gone extinct? Which ones are proliferating? It is important to think about soil as an invisible ecosystem, because many agricultural practices include the deliberate addition of microbes to the soil, biofertilizers.

Biofertilizers are microbes that are grown specifically for application to soil. There are many microbes that are used as biofertilizers, including bacteria and fungi, and the most common application is to improve crop nutrient status. These products are considered by some to be a more sustainable alternative to synthetic fertilizers.

[RELATED: The Fight Over Healthy Soil]

The use of mycorrhizal fungi—fungi that grow on plant roots—as biofertilizers is becoming more common. Applying them as a kind of fertilizer makes sense because these fungi grow in plant roots and help plants get more nutrients from the soil.

Companies encourage farmers to use biofertilizers with the promise that biofertilizers will lead to healthier soil. The number of companies making mycorrhizal fungi has increased dramatically in the last decade—but there’s no easy way to know what they’re selling, where it’s being used and how much is being released into the environment.

The root structure of red daikon radish. Farmers are being sold biofertilizers to increase crop yield. Photo by Slavica Stajic, Shutterstock.

My lab looks at how mycorrhizal biofertilizers move in the environment and how they affect native ecosystems. Because mycorrhizas are an important part of all ecosystems, introducing an alien mycorrhizal fungus may have unintended consequences for native mycorrhizas and ecosystems in general.

Alien species

The application of biofertilizers and mycorrhizal products involves introducing potentially invasive species. These products, which are alien to the environments they are placed in, must establish in a novel environment under a wide range of conditions. To do this, they need to compete against, and replace, native fungi. This is the definition of an invasive species.

The use of biofertilizers may not be a big problem if these products stay where we put them, like in the greenhouse or in a farmer’s field. But if there is one thing we’ve learned about microbes in the last 24 months, it is that they move, and they move fast. There is evidence that mycorrhizal fungi can move over long distances, through atmospheric currents or even as passengers on migratory birds.

In all ecosystems, mycorrhizal fungi link plants in a community through hyphae—thin strands of fungus that carry nutrients to plants. In this way, mycorrhizal fungi and their plant hosts become a superorganism—with plants belonging to different species linked via mycorrhizal hyphae (the filaments that make up the network of a fungi).

Some fungi in soil can be useful, others can damage the soil’s ecosystem. Photo by Perova Evgeniya, Shutterstock.

This allows plants to sense conditions elsewhere in the network by receiving warning chemicals through hyphae if there is a herbivore somewhere in the network and increasing defense chemicals before an attack occurs. Mycorrhizal fungi can also change the flow of sugars from the canopy when a seedling is shaded and needs more carbon.

The problem is, even though these networks are crucial for ecosystems, science does not understand how they are affected by biofertilizers. There is currently no research on how mycorrhizal networks are affected by the introduction of biofertilizers or what it means for ecosystems. Neither is there research beyond my lab of how far these products are moving. But science is clear on one thing: once we release these organisms into the environment, we lose the ability to control them.

Regulating biofertilizers

This is the crux of the matter: we do not know how big of a threat biofertilizers pose to ecosystems. Yet, these products continue to be marketed and released globally, with little or no regulation. In Canada, they are considered soil additives under the Fertilizer Act, which is the federal legislation overseeing the safety of fertilizer and soil supplements. Regulation focuses on the toxicity of biofertilizers to humans and other animals, not their risk as invasive species.

A better framework might be the Plant Protection Act, which exists to protect plants, agriculture and forestry from the spread of plant pests. While mycorrhizal fungi are not pests, they are not universally beneficially in all contexts. For example, these fungi can act as a carbon drain for plants, suppressing their growth under certain conditions. It is not a stretch to say that, in some cases, they might act as plant pests.

[RELATED: The Untapped Potential of Mushrooms]

If biofertilizers are not universally beneficial for all plants in all conditions, they pose a real threat to soil biodiversity and perhaps even plant diversity. If biofertilizers outcompete local fungi, this could change the composition and productivity of plant communities. This is a problem for natural systems, but also for agriculture and forestry.

We need to better regulate these products to ensure that they are not a threat to ecosystems. The thin skin of soil on our planet is home to the creatures who keep our ecosystems functioning—we must not forget about them in our quest to make agriculture more sustainable.

Miranda Hart is a microbial ecologist at the University of British Columbia Okanagan.

The post Opinion: Does Adding Fungi to Soil Do More Harm Than Good? appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Taz stops abruptly, scratches the dirt and sniffs. Owner Jayson Mesman encourages him to be more precise: “Show me.” The dog drops to his haunches, burrows his nose into a patch of dirt, sneezes. “Good boy!” Mesman says, using a small trowel to gently prise the black winter truffle (Tuber melanosporum) out of the ground. It’s the first of 200 to 400 kilograms of truffles Mesman expects to harvest on his 7,000-tree farm located a 15-minute drive from Canberra Airport.

Truffles are big business in Australia, despite the first nugget of locally grown black gold being unearthed on the island state of Tasmania as recently as 1999. Since then, truffles have grown to become a $30-million-to-$40-million-a-year industry, according to AgriFutures Australia. The country is now the world’s fourth largest producer of French black truffles, after Spain, France and Italy, says Noel Fitzpatrick, president of the Australian Truffle Growers Association (ATGA). Australia also leads southern hemisphere production, ahead of Chile and South Africa. It is thus perfectly positioned to capitalize on a ready-made gap in the market, given that southern-hemisphere truffles come online during the northern hemisphere’s off-season.

Anna Terry of Tasmanian Truffles says she’s been eating truffles since she was three years old. Her father, Tim Terry, is often credited with harvesting that first Australian truffle, although an alternative account suggests it was actually agronomist Duncan Garvey, on Terry’s Deloraine farm, who had the honor. In any event, Terry recalls her father “set(ting) out on a pretty wild experiment to try and inoculate trees with truffle spores, which a lot of people said couldn’t be done.” Ignoring the naysayers, he pointed to latitudinal similarities between Provence and Deloraine. “He decided to put all his eggs in one basket and, lo and behold, it worked,” she adds.

The subsequent stampede into the industry came about largely because of the proliferation of managed investment schemes for agricultural products, including grapes, olives, avocados and truffles. These attracted favourable tax treatment, convincing lots of “Collins Street cockies”—defined as well-heeled professionals and “investors wanting to be farmers without getting their hands dirty”—to enter the industry, write Ian R. Hall and Wayne Haslam in Edible Ectomycorrhizal Mushrooms. Investors sank an estimated $8 billion into these schemes, before they began collapsing in 2007 under the weight of unrealistic expectations and broken promises. 

Mel Booth, of Australian Truffle Traders, hunts for truffles with her dog Viva. Photo by Craig Kinder

Many were lured by the prospect of earning high prices for this prestigious product, says Marco Marinelli, who sells truffles through Mushroom Man, his Adelaide Central Market and online shop. “People were sold this idea that they were going to get three grand a kilo for their truffles, which obviously made it worth waiting 10 years to start to see returns,” he says. But for many, it turned out to be a pipe dream. Marinelli points out that while some large producers are doing well, smaller growers can struggle to find a market because they are less reliable in terms of volume. Even ATGA notes that not all 160 commercial growers are currently producing, due to truffles’ temperamental growing needs.

The Shire of Manjimup, about four hours’ drive south of Perth, in Western Australia, produces around 90 percent of the country’s annual 10-tonne export haul, says Gavin Booth. With his wife Mel, Booth owns Australian Truffle Traders, a family truffle farm that also represents many smaller local growers. He also founded Truffle Kerfuffle, an annual weekend-long celebration of truffles, which thrive in Manjimup’s Mediterranean-like climate. “When the fungus decides it likes a place, it really rewards it, and maybe Manjimup is one of those places,” Booth says.

Buoying producers is the gusto with which Australians greet truffles, particularly now, when a ban on international travel means gourmet getaways must be had at home. Until a recent resurgence of COVID-19 closed state borders, Mesman’s truffle hunts, followed by a six-course degustation menu, were fully booked. Chef Craig Will of Launceston’s Stillwater Restaurant conjures new truffle-themed menus each winter due to demand. He says Australians have embraced truffles “because [they’re] relatively new and the season’s short, so it makes them kind of exclusive.” 

In contrast to the free-wheeling early days, the truffle industry has matured, with sounder land management practices, clearer standards in terms of tree and truffle quality and more information for potential growers. Trufficulture’s Colin Carter, vice president of ATGA, says the body has introduced a tree-quality program in which batches of trees are independently evaluated against a given set of criteria. Advice on soil testing and growing requirements, including the ideal planting density for certain climates, has also improved. “Resources such as grower seminars have been developed to assist potential new and existing people in the industry to learn about growing truffles,” he says. 

The next challenge for Mesman and other Australian truffle producers involves growing the elusive white truffle (Tuber magnatum pico). The relentless search is on for this rare variety, which is native to Alba, Italy. “No one in the world has been lucky enough to cultivate those yet,” Mesman says. “So that’s a big race [because] the white truffle is worth about $10,000 a kilogram.”

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