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Book Reviews
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Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms
Can Help Save the World
by Paul Stamets
(Ten Speed Press, 2005, 352 pp, $35)
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In his twenties, Paul Stamets worked as a logger in the Pacific Northwest. His epiphany occurred at the end of a long day’s work when the main cable broke from its anchor, sending him and his fellow workers running for their lives down a steep descent through scree. Paul decided to return to school and major in biology
Mycelium Running, subtitled How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World, is exactly about that. A thick text, full of color photographs illustrating his allies — human & mushroom — is easy and pleasurable to absorb at your own pace. Stamets describes the uses of fungi to filter water, enact ecoforestry policy, denature toxic wastes, control insect pests, and enhance cultivation of food crops.
He describes how each mushroom species has a mycelium that degrades organic matter by secreting unique mixes of extracellular enzymes and acids. Using several species in one area has a synergistic effect for the more complete degeneration of toxins than could be achieved with only one species. The art/science of this method involves knowing which species to use together and their timely introduction.
An example of ecological restoration by mushrooms occurs after forest fires. Morels and cup fungi appear first amid the ashes. These fast-growing and quick-to-decompose mushrooms emerge where seemingly no life would survive. As these fungi mature and release spores, they also release fragrances that attract insects and mammals. Flies deposit larvae in morels, and as the larvae mature, they attract birds, etc. Birds and mammals coming to eat morels defecate seeds of plants eaten far from the fire zone. Critters scour the burnt area, and each organism imports hitchhiking species from afar, essentially carrying an ecological footprint of flora and fauna. With every encounter, each animal is dusted with spores, leaving an invisible trail as they wander on. Morels, therefore, are pioneers for biodiversity.
Similarly, mushrooms help restore environments damaged by pollution. Targeting toxic environments is the first step in mycoremediation. When toxins contaminate, mushrooms often appear that not only tolerate the toxin but metabolize it as a nutrient or cause it to decompose.
Stamets has essentially “trained” specific species over a few weeks to focus on a certain neurotoxin as its only nutrient source. This neurotoxin would be toxic to other mushroom strains. (Species vary greatly in their ability to adapt to specific toxic loads.)
This book includes charts showing mushroom species matching the pathogen or toxin of concern. Through an infant science to humans, nature’s been doing it for millions of years.
As a student, Stamets made filters by peeling mycelia from Petri dishes and comparing their filtration properties to that of cotton. He found that absorbency of tobacco smoke, ink, and water was astonishing. Years later, when served with a court order to install a new septic system on his land, he installed beds of mycelium along the waterway shared with neighbors. A year later the mycelium had filtered the chloroform levels so well that there was a 100-fold drop.
Another mushroom Stamets cultivated was 100% effective in inhibiting the malaria parasite. Therefore mycomulching with this species around a malaria-infected swamp could decrease the population of malaria.
Stamets enumerates the useful aspects of mushrooms in the food garden. Polysaccharides manufactured by the mushrooms act as mucilaginous soil-binding agents. (These same polysaccharides boost the human immune system). These microstructtural cavities hold water and provide life to diverse microbial populations. Thus mycelia give soils porosity, aeration, water retention, and ultimately a platform for diversifying life forms. Many species confer protection to plants during extreme cold. Companion planting strategies using mushrooms promote crop growth.
Gardeners using the no-till method can select crop enhancing fungi that have anti-nematodal, pesticidal, and anti-blight properties. In effect, you can customize the mycosphere for your land. As the mycelium decomposes compost or crop stubble, it projects a fine network of cells, a food web that draws nutrients from great distances.
Adding spores to the oil used to lubricate the teeth of chain saws or chipping equipment is his recommended way to give fungi a head start on decomposing stumps and brush in deforested areas and to jump start old logging roads’ recovery cycle (to reduce silt erosion into streams.)
Stamets, founder of Fungi Perfecti (www fungi.com), enthusiastically shares his visionary insights as well as his concrete knowledge and pragmatic solutions using mushrooms to regulate the earth’s ecosystems. [See the article by Starhawk in our Food issue/Hurricane special insert where she refers to Paul Stamets’ work in New Orleans.] As one of the headline speakers at the S.F. Green Festival in November, Stamets emphasized that New Orleans shouldn’t be hauling away their wood debris but chipping it to rebuild lost soils. He concluded that we could orchestrate mycelium mass — customize it to answer the needs of our community, family, and culinary goals. A worthwhile read from many points of view!
Beth Wachenneim lives in SLO County. She wrote a review for this publication on an earlier book by Paul Stamets (Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms) in our very first issue on Food (Issue #33). She can be reached at beloveds@earthlink.net.
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