Hey all, I have a set of question about using Mass Spectrometry (MS) as a tool for various things in the mushroom world, or looking to find some other form of technology that is accessible and will perform these functions.
I am wanting to: Assess the nutrient profile of grown and wild-harvested mushrooms for macro-nutrients such as protein, lipids, etc. Assess mushrooms for medicinal nutrients such as triterpenes, polysaccharides, beta glucans, ergosterols, etc etc Look for and assess heavy metals or other contaminants and pesticides in fruit bodies Test water and soil for contaminants
I'd love to have access to the equipment or the labs that have this equipment and do this kind of testing. County extension services are not really equipped for this, but there are some university programs and certainly private businesses that will assess for these components. Does anybody have good sources for laboratories that do this stuff for relatively cheap? Usually around $400-$600 which is priiiicey.
Second aspect to the post - has anybody had any experience doing their own assessments of these things? Refurbished spectrometers go for under $20,000, and if they have the capability to test all of the above, that is not much of an investment for a well designed business plan that offers testing services to the community and to other commercial businesses.
Has anybody heard of or used Public Labs equipment? (http://store.publiclab.org/products/desktop-spectrometry-kit) This is a link to their website - they offer Mass Spectrometry desktop kits - obviously less technologically involved than a 20 grand machine. They also offer smart-phone plug in kits that are mini mass spectrometers. Their companies data infrastructure doesn't seem set up well enough to, say, run a soil test and get a full report on the constituents and their amounts. But I don't know enough about it to say that with authority. It seems it has the capability to do so, but a lot of work would need to go into it.
Public Lab is set up to be a community, grass roots sourced data analysis (check out their balloon camera kit - tie a camera to a balloon, release it on a 1000 foot real, and film things from above. They tracked parts of the BP oil spill with this set up!). I would think that if enough of us myco-philes got involved with this, we could establish baseline levels of contaminants, medicinal compounds, macro-nutrients, or whatever else the machine has the capability of 'seeing', and there could be a myco-focused community of mass spectrometers. Lots of potential for water testing, soil testing, testing pre and post mycoremediation, assessing heavy metals in wild specimens, etc.
Anybody have experience or ideas? Anybody know of any cultivators (larger scale) that have and use this technology? Also, relatively new to the posting, so I'm not sure if this is a good place to post, or if there are better places on the Shroomery sphere? Advise if necessary:)
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Yeah, testing is quite expensive. Like you said, a water sample test is ~500 bucks alone. AA stands for atomic absorption spectroscopy and is different than mass spectroscopy, AA splits and measures different wavelengths of light while the MS separates and measures by mass/charge ratio or size/polarity etc... Depending on if its a ICP, GC or LC - MS.
The only other place that might cater well to this question would be the chemistry and pharm. section... I realized it after posting in the mush cult thread you started.
It's a great idea you have, but all labs require a rather hefty operating budget to get stuff done right. Perhaps kickstarter or another crowdsource site could help get your idea started!
-------------------- "Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever." Mahatma Gandhi
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