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InvisibleveggieM

Registered: 07/25/04
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Gel-Suspended Mushrooms Could Save Us From Starvation
    #14519364 - 05/27/11 05:28 AM (12 years, 8 months ago)

Gel-Suspended Mushrooms Could Save Us From Starvation
May 26, 2011 - fastcompany.com

The human race has a food problem. Readily available phosphate fertilizer--a mainstay of intensive agriculture--won't be around for long. That's because supplies of mined phosphate could peak by 2033, at which point the material will become both expensive and hard to find. The ripple effects of a phosphate shortage could be catastrophic. But part of the solution to our phosphate woes may come from an unexpected place: gel-suspended mushrooms.

The news comes from the University of Lausanne, where researchers have been looking at why a kind of fungus that lives symbiotically with plant roots (mycorrhizal fungi) causes plants to grow larger. The mushrooms are expert at acquiring phosphates from the soil. So the university researchers are experimenting with producing massive quantities of the fungus, suspending it in a gel for easy transportation, and then attaching the gel to needy crops in tropical areas, where plants have extra difficulty gathering phosphate from the soil.

And it works remarkably well. During testing on potato crops in Colombia, the researchers discovered that plants using the gel can produce the same yield of crops with half the amount of added fertilizer.

This is a promising sign: A lot of what you eat might be fungi-fertilized soon. But this won't solve the phosphate problem altogether. For that, we'll need an arsenal of potential fixes, including recycling human urine (a phosphate-rich substance) and homemade bone meal. Entrepreneurs, now is the time to make these solutions both viable and appetizing.


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InvisiblePassiveAgressive
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Re: Gel-Suspended Mushrooms Could Save Us From Starvation [Re: veggie]
    #14519438 - 05/27/11 06:13 AM (12 years, 8 months ago)

This is good news for someone who's expected to live past 2033. People sure paint the future as a scary place. I don't get into the hype, I just tend my garden :P


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OfflineOdd_Nonposter
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Registered: 06/26/10
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Re: Gel-Suspended Mushrooms Could Save Us From Starvation [Re: PassiveAgressive]
    #14519539 - 05/27/11 06:51 AM (12 years, 8 months ago)

I've heard Paul Stamets's claims about mycorrhizial fungi increasing phosphate, ammonium, and water uptake.

To me, they sound like a good idea, but we need field trials and studies to show how they can be implemented in mainstream agriculture. I think that myc spores could be mixed in with seed, similar to how we apply bacterial inoculants, but I'm not going to order fifty pounds of spores from fungiperfecti if they're not going to have any significant effect.

The fungal inoculation would be mutually exclusive of fungicide-treated seed, of course.


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InvisiblePassiveAgressive
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Re: Gel-Suspended Mushrooms Could Save Us From Starvation [Re: Odd_Nonposter]
    #14519561 - 05/27/11 07:00 AM (12 years, 8 months ago)

Industrial scale liquid batch culture with a flow-rate. I can't recall all the specifics, but they use these techniques for propagating cordyceps over in the far east.

I would guess that a basic technique for selecting for the chosen mycorrhizial strain would be to make slurries of the host plants and distribute live filaments to the roots of living plants. I see no problem here, just a matter of finding the funding to do the trials.


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Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened.
Happiness never decreases by being shared. - Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism, 563-483 B.C.


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Offlinebatman returns
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Registered: 09/12/09
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Re: Gel-Suspended Mushrooms Could Save Us From Starvation [Re: Odd_Nonposter]
    #14520242 - 05/27/11 11:00 AM (12 years, 8 months ago)

Quote:

Odd_Nonposter said:
I've heard Paul Stamets's claims about mycorrhizial fungi increasing phosphate, ammonium, and water uptake.

To me, they sound like a good idea, but we need field trials and studies to show how they can be implemented in mainstream agriculture. I think that myc spores could be mixed in with seed, similar to how we apply bacterial inoculants, but I'm not going to order fifty pounds of spores from fungiperfecti if they're not going to have any significant effect.

The fungal inoculation would be mutually exclusive of fungicide-treated seed, of course.




i use stamets mycgro in my hydro setup, and it seems that my root masses have increased. it's part of my regular cocktail now.


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OfflineDrise
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Re: Gel-Suspended Mushrooms Could Save Us From Starvation [Re: batman returns]
    #14523877 - 05/27/11 10:27 PM (12 years, 8 months ago)

Phosphate is still finite and comes from weathered rock so...how does this help?


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Offlinedip
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Re: Gel-Suspended Mushrooms Could Save Us From Starvation [Re: Drise]
    #14524029 - 05/27/11 10:55 PM (12 years, 8 months ago)

I can answer that, Drise:  Many soil types are rich in phosphate but it is in a form that is mostly unavailable to plants.  That is where the fungi come into play.  They CAN get at this stuff due to their specialized enzymes, and they can then pass it along to the host plant's roots, in exchange for carbohydrates.  That is the basis of all mycorrhizal associations.

An ironic footnote to all this:  Where I live, phosphate-containing fertilizers have been all but banned.  This is because when these phosphates enter waterways, they cause explosions of undesirable algae species which grow profusely, die off inevitably, and then require large amounts of oxygen in their decay.  This leaves little oxygen for other more desirable aquatic species, both plant and animal.  Not to mention, these algal mats wash up on beaches and stink.  There are many once-nice beaches along L. Michigan in my area that are now foul smelling stinkholes.  This has been attributed to the occasional entry of large amounts of untreated sewage into the lake from the big cities along the lake when heavy rains leak into the sanitary sewers overwhelming the treatment plants, which then must dump directly into the lake.

Aren't you glad you asked?

dip


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