Gandoerma lucidum is one of the oldest medicinal mushrooms and has been used for more than 4000 years to provide numerous benefits such as: inhibiting cancer development; it is anti-parasitic, anti-fungal, anti-inflamatory, anti-viral; and it has been found to lower blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol.
“Growing more mushrooms may be the best thing we can do to save the environment.”
While they are mostly hidden from the casual observer, “there are more species of fungi, bacteria, and protozoa in a single scoop of soil than there are plants and vertebrate animals in all of North America.”
--Paul Stamets has made mushrooms his life’s work, and has published invaluable resources on the subject including Mycelium Running : How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World.
“Stamets is a visionary emissary from the fungus kingdom to our world, and the message he’s brought back in his book, about the possibilities fungi hold for healing the environment, will fill you with wonder and hope.”
--Michael Pollan, author of The Botany of Desire
Mycorestoration encompasses mycofiltration, mycoforestry mycoremediation, and mycopesticides which: capture and reduce silt and catch upstream contaminants, enhance forest health, neutralize toxins and control pest populations, respectively.[1] Microscopic mushrooms are the hidden gardeners in the garden, and mega filters of the earth’s waste. The microscopic fungi cells called “mycelium”—the fruit of which are mushrooms—recycle many essential nutrients including carbon and nitrogen by breaking down plant and animal wastes and making these elements available in the soil.[2] They are in fact the keystone species without which all ecosystems would fail.[3]
Mycorrhizal fungi benefit plants by:[4]
- Facilitating better uptake of nutrients, especially phosphorous
- Improving the structure of the soil which increases the soil’s ability to hold water, trapping otherwise lost nutrients
- Quickly rehabilitating degraded sites because the mycorrizal fungi allow better uptake of nutrients, which helps to compensate for the poor soil conditions.
- Creating healthier plants with better nutrition and water uptake, resulting in less disease and fewer pests.
- Biocontrol of certain pathogenic organisms by inhabiting the roots of the plant and creating interference, thereby protecting the plant.
- Tolerance for problems soils by regulating the uptake of toxins in the soil.
Amanita pantherina
Mycellium added to compost increases the output from the waste decomposition process by helping to break down toxins more quickly while simultaneously producing gourmet and medicinal mushrooms depending on the applied mycelium.
While mushroom cultivation can be extremely challenging, pioneers like Paul Stamets have made our work so much easier for us by laying out the techniques for successful cultivation that anyone can follow. We will encourage the growth of mycelium everywhere we can at the center and through our community outreach projects.
[1] Stamets, Paul. Mycelium Running : How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World. New York: Ten Speed P, 2005.
[2] Id.
[3] Id.
[4] Craig Elevitch and Kim Wilkinson, “Mycorrhizae--Essential Partners in Plant Health,” Overstory #8, available at: http://agroforestry.net/overstory/overstory8.html
