What I want to do or know
mycoremediation (using fungi to remediate anthropogenic toxins from our soils and waterways.)
Background story
I am a forth year student at Hampshire College studying mycoremediation - the use of fungi to degrade/transform/absorb anthropogenic xenotoxins in our soil and waterways. I have taken a mycology course at my university and am currently TAing a mushroom practicum for more hands on experience. I have undergone a month long internship at Aloha Medicinals where I received my clean room certificate and advanced spawn making techniques certificate. I have taken Ja Schindler of Fungi of the People's weeklong mycoremediation course, along with Tradd Cotter of Mushroom mountain's weekend long mycoremediation course. Along with various other general cultivation courses/classes around the country. This last summer up to now I have taught dozens of classes/workshops sometimes up to three in one week. Topics varied from: Introduction to fungi/ecological roles/lifecycles, Gardening with Stropharia, Shiitake logs, Cultivating Oyster Mushrooms, Transforming local "waste" with low tek oyster mushroom production, Mycoremediation, The Degradation of Cigarette Butts by Fungi, Mycomedicinals, Lab Skills, The ins and outs of a commercial mushroom facility, and the future of fungi/the top of the line research going on in the mycological world, indoor biomimetic closed loop permaculture systems, and mycopermaculture. Teaching in Massachusetts New Hampshire, New York, Colorado, Pennsylvania, and Ecuador. I also helped with the mycoremediation presentations at Telluride Mushroom Festival 2016. For the last couple years I have been working at managing and maintaining a local Mushroom Farm - Fungi Ally - who grows gourmet mushrooms, spawn and teaches mycology to the local community. I have been working on an independant project and the remediation of cigarette butts. Now I am working in collaboration the Amazon Mycorenewel Project/corenewel, and working with a mycoremediation team spearheaded by Daniel Reyes in collaboration with Tradd cotter from Mushroom Mountain to clean up brownfield sites in the USA. We currently have a project site in Austin Texas, in Ecuador and are working with Tradd cotter from mushroom mountain. The vision is to create a mycoremediation super team with the collaboration of organizations like Mushroom mountain, The Amazon Mycorenewel Project, Radical Mycology, and lots of eager mycologists, scientists, organizers etc from all around the world. Also working with a few people to make a web platform to make mycoremediation accessible to all people
Hey Mushroomman!
Fellow mycology fanatic here seeking some community resources that eventually led me to your post- I studied mycoremediation in my undergrad research in SW Colorado, focusing on the effectiveness of Pleurotus ostreatus in the degradation of aminopyralid herbicides, which have demonstrated persistence in SW organic soils. Since then I have been searching for more information or individuals interested in further pursuing this field. I am now living in Washington state, and given the increasing shoreline contamination in this area, seems like a great place to try it out. Would love to hear more about your plans for the brownfield site projects and become more involved in any capacity.
Hello Jlmaybach.
I am actually doing a master in Barcelona of Design for the Emergent Futures. So I am going to the area of bioremediation with fungi mycoremediation system. Where I searching to remediate toxic with mycelium like the idea to create regenerative materials. So as a first step I train oyster mushroom to digest cigarette but form the street. Having a good result because the fungi break it down completely digesting it. But the problem is then when I want to prove that the fungi were able to transform the toxic of the cigarette butt in organic material I can't prove it with real data. So I am now struggling because they are some scientists that had told me that is impossible that the toxic are still there worst know in the mushroom infecting nature. But I see that they are other many scientists like you that have proved that fungi are able to bioremediate and transform toxic inorganic materials.
Mycoremediation its a real solution for toxic or waste? Can you help me how to prove the effectiveness? And if you can send me your experiment process it would be very useful for me.
Thank you.
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I'm late to the party, but a very cool topic! If you're interested in finding local collaborators, I might suggest reaching out to the Northwest regional list (you can find all of our lists here: https://publiclab.org/lists), but I would also encourage you to post more about your work here on the website! There has been a lot of interest in exploring remediation tools (including bio-tools) around here lately, and I suspect that folks would be really interested in the projects you're describing.
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Hey @mushroomman,
I can see this post is several years old by now but if anyone reading this is interesting in connecting over fungi / mycoremediation, let me know! I am based in Minneapolis and interested in creating spaces here for people to work on mycology projects. Would be great to talk with fellow mushroom enthusiasts in the midwest and around the US / other countries.
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