[HN Gopher] Mushrooms: Next big thing in environmentally-friendl... ___________________________________________________________________ Mushrooms: Next big thing in environmentally-friendly packaging, construction? Author : DocFeind Score : 184 points Date : 2022-03-04 16:43 UTC (6 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.nasdaq.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.nasdaq.com) | DonHopkins wrote: | Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't: | | The Ethnomycology of Ugly Landscaping: | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHRgY8fZNv4 | | Late Night at the Mushroom Lab: | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJVXAALRfRo | givemeethekeys wrote: | Some quick searching indicates that, unlike what the article | suggests, we can compost cardboard at home. | solomonb wrote: | It is in fact trivial to compost cardboard at home! I consider | cardboard a valuable resource around the garden and use it for | a variety of soil building related applications. | solomonb wrote: | You have to grow the fungi on some organic material such as | sawdust using a ton of energy and disposable plastics to | sterilize and culture the mycelium. Why not simply use the | sawdust or whatever as a soft packing material on its own? | wy35 wrote: | Have you ever felt mycelium? Mycelium is much softer than loose | sawdust. It's very bouncy and porous. | | There's exceptions, of course. Reishi mycelium is extremely | hard. A student once created a canoe out of Reishi mycelium and | successfully paddled it around. Hobbyists who grow Reishi at | home often complain how it is nearly impossible to scoop Reishi | mycelium out of the jars they grow in. But I digress, the vast | majority of species have soft mycelium. | hahamrfunnyguy wrote: | In all of the use cases where I have seen mushroom packaging | being called for, a traditional green packaging could have been | used instead. Recycled paper is a very versatile material and | is very easy to work with. | | A wide variety of packaging can be made from cardboard & | cardstock with a simple steel rule die. If custom shapes are | needed, then compressed fiber like fast-food drink trays are an | option. There are starch-based packing peanuts that can replace | polystyrene peanuts. There's a lot more room for innovation | beyond what we already have too, I think Amazon's paper mailers | are a good example. | solomonb wrote: | I'm with you 100% on this. I actually cultivate gourmet | mushrooms as a hobby (started about 15 years ago when I took | a course in university) and am a big fan of mycology and the | importance of fungi ecologically, nutritionally, and | medicinally. | | However, there are, IMO, currently significant environmental | downsides to indoor mushroom cultivation. Mushrooms are | having a "moment" and there is a gold rush to throw them at | everything under the sun. | meristohm wrote: | While this is cool, and I far prefer materials I can put in the | compost pile over those bound for Trash Mountain, Incinerator, or | Recycling Operation, the better action is to decrease demand by | getting by with less, collectively. I'm not appealing to | individuals to change their behavior, but to regulatory agencies | so there's a sense of fairness. | malleefowl wrote: | According to the Mushroom Packaging FAQ, it's home compostable | wy35 wrote: | Mushroom mycelium is organic material, so it is compostable. | Why do you think it wouldn't be? | | In fact, mycelium composts faster since it contains more | nutrients than cardboard. Leftover mycelium is nutritious | enough to be used as fertilizer for growing other crops. | lvs wrote: | > If cement manufacturing alone were a country, it would be the | third-largest emitter of CO2 on the planet. Since mushrooms are | relatively easy to feed, can be grown anywhere, and are appealing | to increasingly environmentally aware consumers, we expect to see | significant growth in mushroom tech solutions in building | materials. | | Mushrooms are not plants. They don't photosynthesize and fix | carbon dioxide from the air. Growing mushrooms is still carbon | positive. It's important to understand that this is an organism | that respires, so these generic claims about a carbon benefit | need much more analysis to understand whether there is in fact a | benefit at scale. | BizarroLand wrote: | By themselves they may not remove carbon from the air but they | do sequester carbon by consuming carbon stores and converting | them into different products. | | You could, in theory, make a wolffia farm (Wolffia being the | fastest growing plant on the planet and very carbon hungry to | boot) and feed the wolffia to mushrooms to convert them into | building, clothing, and packing materials and thus create a | cycle of utilitarian carbon sequestration | | https://www.cshl.edu/how-to-bury-carbon-let-plants-do-the-di... | | https://cleantechnica.com/2013/04/04/mushrooms-could-be-key-... | revscat wrote: | > One of the market leaders in mycelium pack-tech is Ecovate | Design, based in New York, which closed a $60 million round of | funding last year. One of the company's products is Mushroom(r) | Packaging, which is made with just hemp hurd, a byproduct of the | fiber hemp industry, and mycelium to form a solid composite form | that is light, strong, fire, and water-resistant. | | This is all well and good, but how do they manage to have a | trademark on the word "mushroom"? | gamblor956 wrote: | Because mushrooms are traditionally food, and not packaging, so | the "trade" mark is relevant and claimable with respect to | packing materials. | | They would have difficulty enforcing the trademark against | other uses of mushroom, and attempts to do so could result in | their trademark being voided on breadth grounds. | [deleted] | giantg2 wrote: | I have a similar thought. Just to be clear though, it's a Brand | and not a Trademark. I think brands do not have the restriction | of being original since it's just the name you want to be | identified by. But I could be missing something. | ijlx wrote: | (r) is the symbol for "registered trademark" though? | giantg2 wrote: | True. I guess a brand is just a subset of a trademark with | the only additional requirement that it be made of words | and not symbols. | | And it seems that because the packaging is the mycelium and | not actually mushrooms, that they can use "Mushroom". | Interesting. | | https://secureyourtrademark.com/can-you-trademark/common- | wor... | dymk wrote: | Likely the same way that Apple holds their name | CameronNemo wrote: | But in that case the computers are not literally made of | apples. | iratewizard wrote: | Source? | hahamrfunnyguy wrote: | It's a neat idea but also an impractical, unrealistic one. This | sort of packaging can't be produced quickly like current green | alternatives like compressed fiber. A lot of space is needed to | let the packaging grow. | | Just grow mushrooms for food and make packaging from other green | materials. | elldoubleyew wrote: | Unrelated to the article but why do modern browsers still allow | the native back button functionality to be prevented like this? | | When I tried to go back from this page it presented me with | "articles to check before you go" which is infuriating. | dang wrote: | " _Please don 't complain about tangential annoyances--things | like article or website formats, name collisions, or back- | button breakage. They're too common to be interesting._" | | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html | slig wrote: | They managed to make something more infuriating than the | "before you go" exit intention modal. | dylan604 wrote: | SPAs. They allowed history manipulation to allow state updating | via URL without triggering a page reload. | | Design a thing for a purpose, people will use that thing for a | different purpose. Those new purposes are not always benign. | rfreytag wrote: | For TOR users: https://archive.ph/9fEMt | giantg2 wrote: | You can try this at home, sort of. It will yield tasty mushrooms | but will be too heavy to use for shipping. You can grow mushrooms | on substrate in bags. After inoculation you can form the | substrate (mostly wet sawdust) into different shapes within the | bag. | | Or you can buy them pre-made in blocks if you want to skip | inoculation, sterilization, etc | https://www.woodlandjewel.com/shop | belval wrote: | Pre-made are pretty cool, but I'd be wary of DIY-ing mushroom | cultures. There are several YouTube channels dedicated to this | and they explain all the contingency that they use to prevent | contamination and it's surprisingly non-trivial. | cwkoss wrote: | Yep, all of my amateur gourmet mushroom growing attempts have | resulted in contamination sooner or later. The good attempts | had several flushes before mold set in, the bad attempts | created such foul odors they went straight into the compost | (or garbage for the most offensive result) | | Seems like creating an environment that certain funguses like | but others don't is pretty tricky, and mostly relies on | giving your chosen fungus a head start unless you can | maintain perfect sterility. | monetus wrote: | Flow hoods for the win! You probably know that, but it | should be said in case someone reading does not. If you | can't buy one, diy a decent one, then keep the air in your | workroom as stagnant as possible and cross your fingers. | giantg2 wrote: | The problem with flow hoods is that most people don't | want to, or can't, leave them on indefinitely. Once | theyre off, the air will carry contaminates to the clean | side. That's basically what I realized after a DIY using | setup that looks like an open front glovebox with a HEPA | filter blowing air through it. | cwkoss wrote: | Yeah, I did a janky cardboard box and saran wrap glovebox | when I tried to do my own innoculation... was a PITA to | use, and contamination from that batch was worse than | when I just went into a room with still air and crossed | my fingers. | | (didnt have HEPA filtered air blowing, that sounds like a | good idea) | wy35 wrote: | A big plastic tub with two arm holes cut out would be a | much better solution. | | And I hope by "glovebox" you mean a still-air box, | because gloves attached to the box actually increase the | contamination rate due to the box sucking in air when you | move your hands. | cwkoss wrote: | yep, still air box is the correct term I think. It was a | cardboard box with two armholes cut, and saran wrap | stretched over the top. | | Put all my equipment inside, stuck my arms in to more or | less plug the holes, then sprayed a bunch of rubbing | alcohol all over the inside, then got to work. The | ergonomics were horrible, my back got tired, and I'm | pretty sure my arms didn't plug the holes very well and I | assume they effectively were pumping air through the | system by the end of it as I got sloppier. | | Definitely will do something better on any future | attempts, haha | giantg2 wrote: | "The good attempts had several flushes before mold set in, | " | | Many of the commercial kits will grow mold after a few | flushes too. Many will only guarantee a first flush. One | trick I've heard of is leaving the block in an area with a | lot of freash air movement after each flush, even placing | them outside. | cwkoss wrote: | Commercial shiitake kit got mold on second flush, so I | buried it in a raised bed. Nothing happened for a couple | weeks, so I stopped checking it regularly, but then found | a HUGE (unfortunately old) mushroom (and a few normal | sized ones) growing from that spot about a month later. I | think burying after first flush might be the best way to | go - soil manages moisture and gas exchange needs pretty | well already. | | Excited to try growing stropharia wine caps soon! PNW is | great climate for having a bunch of wood chips on top of | garden beds anyways :D | giantg2 wrote: | True. If going the outdoor route, shiitake logs can be a | good option too. Depends on how much space one has and | the options for sourcing the logs. | giantg2 wrote: | You can "clone" some mushrooms pretty easily. Oyster | mushrooms and shiitake tend to be ageessive enough to out | compete minor contamination (depends on where you live as to | what contams are around). Make multiple slides. Pick the | clean ones to move to grain spawn. One or two dishes in a | quart jar of grain spawn. Don't expand too quickly/far - look | for inoculation rates over 10% of the substrate mass when | moving to fruiting substrate. | | That said, just a dead air box/bag/room with lysol aerosol | disinfectant (ethanol) for the trapped air and 70% isopropyl | alcohol for surfaces is fairly effective. I'd be careful with | fumes. I have a basic respirator like a 3M 5xxx or something. | | I also tried a combination flowhood/glove box type thing. It | works well if you have a new filter or leave it on. | Otherwise, I think contamination just gets blown off of the | filter once you do turn it on again. | | I didn't mean for it to even go this deep. You don't need to | actually culture the mushroom from scratch. You can buy | syringes with liquid culture. Then just squirt it through the | bag with sterilized grain spawn (pressure cooker can | sterilize). Then transfers to the fruiting substrate can be | done in a moderately cleaned room without any special devices | using the aerosol and wipe alcohol with inoculation 10-20%. | This is surprising effective, even for contamination prone | stuff like lions mane (which I can never seem to culture from | spores myself). | danans wrote: | Ecovative has a spinoff (https://myforestfoods.com/) that makes a | mushroom based "bacon" that I'd like to try. Last I heard they | were only selling it at a few stores in upstate New York. Anyone | tried it? | steveaux wrote: | I'm glad to see work being done on packaging alternatives, | especially biodegradable/compostable solutions. However I have | one issue with using mushrooms: these life forms are so | remarkable and so valuable for nutritional and medicinal purposes | that the time and energy spent cultivating them just for | packaging material is a terrific waste of resources in itself. | Search "medicinal mushrooms" or "fantastic fungi" to gain an | understanding of the extraordinary nutritive potency and | medicinal potential of mycelial crops. Perhaps a symbiosis | between mushroom growers and processers could be worked out, | whereby nutrients and medicines are first extracted and | concentrated, and the 'drosses' or fibrous remains are then | processed into packing and construction materials. In other | words, if you're taking the trouble to grow mushrooms, maximize | your resource and production capabilities. The same sort of thing | could be done with cannabis cultivars, could it not? I'm looking | toward a future of zero waste, of all materials and energy | generation. | 0x0000000 wrote: | I remember reading about Eben and Gavin (founders of Ecovative | which powers Mushroom Packaging) about 15 years ago in some | promotional material from their alma mater. If I recall | correctly, they did have a deal with Dell at one point for their | packaging. It's cool to see they're still working on this and | have raised quite a bit more money since then. | fluxify wrote: | I was part of a team experimenting with mushroom packaging about | 3 years ago. While we had quite good results material-wise, we | couldn't really make the total environmental equation work on | smaller scales. Growing the mycelium really fast and efficiently | requires quite a bit of energy input (heating, humidity controls, | airflow...) and you need to source quite a few ingredients for | the growth medium. I'd be curious what the total ecological | impact is if all of those inputs are factored in when doing it on | a large scale (like Ecovative). | [deleted] | meatmanek wrote: | The Opulo / LumenPNP folks talked about this in their video on | packaging their pick-and-place machine[1]. They mention that it | takes a month to grow the packaging, so you'd need a mold for | each unit of product you plan to ship in a month. | | 1. https://youtu.be/Ku4Wvu6LsrU?t=379 | randyrand wrote: | Cool to see this company gaining more attention! | ghostly_s wrote: | This video has literally no content about mycelium packaging | aside from the one sentence you summarized. | wy35 wrote: | > and you need to source quite a few ingredients for the growth | medium | | That's entirely dependent on the species. | | Oysters can be grown entirely on non-supplemented sawdust. | Supplements can be just wheat bran or soy hulls, and maybe | gypsum or CaCO3. That's a short ingredient list and easily | sourced from your local Tractor Supply. | telotortium wrote: | You're leaving out | | > Growing the mycelium really fast and efficiently requires | quite a bit of energy input (heating, humidity controls, | airflow...) | | Given the impact of climate change, it's not really worth | saving a little bit of oil to make the plastic (which, since | it's not biodegradable, will probably not contribute to | increasing greenhouse gasses) if you have to burn more oil, | which _will_ produce CO2, to make the mushroom-based | packaging. | friedturkey wrote: | With a move away from fossil fuels, CO2 will become less of | a concern. | LordDragonfang wrote: | The fact that plastic isn't biodegradable is one of the | main reasons there's a push for alternate packaging | materials. Plastic overuse is a major ecological concern, | to the point that some people are positioning it as an | issue on par with global warming, and one we have time to | work on fixing. | | In other words, avoiding plastic is the whole point here. | solomonb wrote: | Yet using mycelieum for packing materials requires lots | of disposable plastic to convert something already | suitable for a packing material (sawdust) into a | different material suitable for packing material with a | little green washing. | solomonb wrote: | You are leaving out: | | - Disposable autoclavable bags | | - Spawn (either grain or some form of sugar water) | | - Disposable lab equipment (scalpels, petri dishes, parafilm, | syringes, etc). Some of this doesn't need to be disposable | but then you spend more energy cleaning and sterilizing it. | | - All the energy that goes into sterilization, | humidification, etc. | somethoughts wrote: | An interesting application might be the grow media for | hydroponic farms. While visiting an aquaponics farm it seemed | the grow media was styrofoam based which didn't seem quite | right. An organic based solution that's also biodegradable | would seem much better/safer. | belval wrote: | It might depend on the exploitation, but most raft methods | (floating styrofoam board) I've seen will reuse the board so | it's really not as bad as it seems. | | As for the safe part, the concentration of plastics in the | nutrient solution might be a tad higher, but the plant will | only pick up a small fraction or none of it so there aren't | any big health concerns on that front. | terr-dav wrote: | In the same way that food will only pick up a small | fraction of teflon from a nonstick pan, so there shouldn't | be any big health concerns? | belval wrote: | Not really no, more in the sense that plants growing in a | field with more lead (not lead contaminated, just above- | average) might pickup a bit more lead from the soil and | still be good for human consumption. | rudolph9 wrote: | Same way there's a small amount of cyanide in most apple | seeds | samstave wrote: | What I would love to see would be the combining of indoor | cannabis farming and mycelium growth. | | Do you think this would be a workable symbiosis? | brianhorakh wrote: | Yes, i work on exactly this now, for years, many failures. | Co2 output from mushroom is the input to cannabis. | Temperature differential is a real problem. | samstave wrote: | I would like to know more, I have worked in Cannabis (built | out one of the few type 7 extraction labs in California... | my neighbor and friend is the DA for the DCC in California, | and I have close contact with some of the largest outdoor | growers in the state... | | I'd be interested in hearing more and figuring out how to | work more on this topic. | cwkoss wrote: | What is the temperature differential problem? | | (I think many mushrooms are pretty happy fruiting at ~70F | room temperature, as is cannabis. Is it that the grow | lights fight the humidity needs of the mushrooms? Or do the | species of mushrooms you're using have different | temperature needs? Or the cannabis grows faster as | temperature increases? | | I've only worked with shiitake and oyster, and got poor | results with one lions mane attempt so... definitely not an | expert) | elasticventures wrote: | cannabis can grow _very_ fast in the right conditions. | mushrooms can grow _very_ fast in the right conditions. | | so ... I suppose if you live in a place .. like Merica | 70F/21c (or are you Liberian?) .. anyway, that 70F is | 'golden temperature band' conducive to growing most | anything. YES both species could co-exist without a lot | of complication, neither will thrive, but neither will | probably die. 70F - I think that's like Vista, CA. has | the ideal 'most stable' temperature in the US. .. but | real-estate is super expensive, so to have that you must | live in a nice place, with good weather and blabla, "it's | not farm-land", .. also if you need something you | probably just order it from Amazon and it shows up a day | later. | | RE: Cannabis 'optimal yield' .. i.e. we both get the | 'same' genetics, from the same bank, which of us could | grow a better plant? The environmental conditions + light | + soil motility (or hydro) all contribute to phenotype | expression, not just life cycle, .. over the life, the | air-flow rate for transpiration, light fluence, all those | must be in balance -- MOST cannabis per it's name 'weed' | is quite hardy, but you'll get different phenotype | expression, if you have poor ventilation, o2 build-up | (low co2), that can shock/stress the plant, it won't be | as dense (i.e. if you are sea level vs. growing on a | mountain) .. if you start changing it's environment | you'll see the plant changes _a lot_ , also using | hormones, other approaches there are a lot of ways to | boost yield (also, NEVER for example put Flower/Rose grow | accelerate on your cannabis, it becomes cancer causing | toxic when smoked! and this is why 'dark market' cannabis | is so dangerous). Some cannabis growers buy industrial | Co2 tanks and pipe that into their greenhouses, | especially in places where they are limited to how many | plants they can legally grow in a space, -- so it's known | to use co2 helps to turn over bigger crops faster _(the | co2 comes from petroleum, and it makes me sick to think | they 're just dumping it into the atmosphere). I've seen | growers using co2 do as many as ~6 full cycles per year | (sort of like raising chickens indoors using lights).. so | I wanted an organic source of Co2 from either brewing | yeast and/or mushrooms! (NOTE: this is NOT cost | competitive, petroleum based co2 is basically free) | | Because .. MOST growers, most farmers in general are | pretty lazy, and "don't mess with it" since plants have | evolved over hundreds of millions of years to exist on | earth in the present climate. _Most* 'farmers' aren't | scientists, they are inclined to let nature be nature and | give up control of existential co-factors, beyond water, | fertilizer, greenhouse structure. This is really easy, | probably 'best' if you live in ideal climate zone, nature | takes care of most of this for you -- I grew up in San | Diego, CA. aside from water, the SoCal weather is | extremely conducive to growing .. always 70F. US Farmers | are often religious, and in this case, the religion is | necessary because all they can do is pray for good | weather, and (so I've been told) that seems to be working | so far! | | Alas, I do not live in Merica anymore, .. I'm an Expat! I | (intentionally) live someplace else, and having left the | US my prayers are no longer answered. I left the US | because I don't want to live in an anocracy (failed | democracy), and at this point, perhaps in my lifetime the | US will collapse into civil war, and the subsequent | religious state that would emerge, it's not someplace I | want to live. I mostly blame Regan, but I do miss the | weather in San Diego. Alas, I digress. My point is: | praying for crops only seems to work in America, mostly | where there is already good weather & therefore better | churches. | | Now, something most American's don't realize is that MOST | of the people on the planet Earth, they live in a place | where the weather is already unpleasant (I assume, | because god hates non-Americas), and also mostly | attributed to America, the non-American weather is only | going to get worse (more extreme). Our ecosystem of | plants & fungi - stuff that used to grow -- the truth is | it already doesn't grow as well as it did for our grand- | parents, and in the future, well who knows, .. indoor | growing 'sheltered farming', controlling temperature, | when it's all ~70F US (i.e. Los Angeles), farming there | isn't hard, maybe the soil is bad,whaha, add some lime to | break up your clay, then keep dumping yer high nitrogen | fertilizer till it gets into your lakes & rivers .. or at | least until we hit peak phosphorous and you can't | buy/afford fertilizer .. that's maybe ~10-20 years but | alas, I digress. American's don't realize how much easier | agriculture is IN AMERICA (it's really got excellent | climate, overall for it's size) .. again, this is | attributed mostly to prayer & good weather from all the | farmers praying. | | But for me -- I presently live in a place that is known | for it's extreme temperature & humidity, not uncommon to | have a 10(c) flux in an hour, etc. We aren't religious | here, or at least not extremely religious like America, | and everybody gets to vote (or they pay a fine), and all | the votes get counted, and everybody is really respectful | to each-other despite being secular. | | HOWEVER neither species we've discussed is presently | legal where I am .. so as an foreigner, the punishments | for being caught would be extremely unpleasant, bordering | on "life destroying" (and ultimately I would be sent BACK | to America). So _everything_ must be stealth, covert, | blabla, and it 's even illegal to touch electrical wire | unless I'm a licensed electrician out of over-zealous | concern for fire. .. hint: as an immigrant, I'm not | licensed to do anything. FML. | | With agriculture being a biological process, it's | innately a markov chain, each action, any discrete | failure, impacts the rest of the chain, the organism gets | stressed, it doesn't grow as well, maybe it fruits early, | or not at all. | | The /optimal/ growing conditions for cannabis & fungi are | known to be different. Once the HVAC systems are | interconnected between two systems, the number of | variables which can grow horribly wrong, and where | balancing one impacts the other. Add more factors, such | as experimenting with different cultivation cycles & | processes, etc. the combined system(s) doesn't lend | itself to micro-scale 'experimentation', .. | interconnecting the two systems in a way they can co- | exist, in theory, simple, in practice, not as simple. In | practice you need a lot of sensors, automation, climate | buffer zones, and/or patience & dealing with | disappointment. | | fwiw - I am _trying_ to figure out how to micro-scale & | automate the control systems. So if anybody says "yeah, | this is easy" please show me how. I am designing a system | I would like to take to Mars colony (not interested in | the moon) and I basically don't see how NASA or SpaceX | can build a sustainable mars colony without using | fungi/Eukaryotes. | | Finally -- for those who made it to the bottom of this | post. Fwiw mushrooms, i.e. oyster, reshi, can supposedly | grow EXTREMELY FAST, like ~20x faster than 'normal' using | high voltage stimulus, or potentially similar effects | using cold-plasma) .. papers & studies, also look up | 'fairy rings' where mushrooms grow in a circle after a | lightning strike -- (this has been 'anecdotally' known | for thousands of years). | samstave wrote: | Uhm I am replying to this post, but give me some time. I | hope to make it worth your wait. | elasticventures wrote: | no worries, was having fun with the response. | xhevahir wrote: | >when it's all ~70F US (i.e. Los Angeles), farming there | isn't hard, maybe the soil is bad,whaha... | | You don't mention the huge, state-managed infrastructure | needed to bring water to those places(which seem to be | close to exhausting their supply.) I don't think it's | climate that's made American agriculture so productive. | AngryData wrote: | I just want to add, if people are upgrading to LEDs they | will have a drop in yield unless they raise room | temperatures to 80F or more so there is still a | temperature differential, although to me it seems | relatively minor especially using heat exchangers. The | high efficiency of LED grow lights means leaf | temperatures are much lower so room temperature must go | up to compensate. | cwkoss wrote: | I wonder if the root zone needs the warmth too, or if its | just the aerial parts of the plant that needs the warmth | for optimal growth. | | Maybe plastic with holes for each stem could be used to | insulate the aerial airspace from the root airspace and | then a small heatpump could make that 10F differential | with relatively low power cost. | samstave wrote: | Super interesting. | | I wonder what the baseline is btwn the two ; | | How dependent on heat is the "fruitful" nature of the | plant vs the subsitance livability of the plant? | | i.e. | | Min temp for survival vs min temp to fruit and the | balance between... What is the coldest one can keep a | plant while maintaining max fruiting output? | monetus wrote: | Find any mycelium that help the root systems? | samstave wrote: | AFAIK all mycelium helps root systems, from the symbiotic | relation, but in indoor, hydro type grows it might be | harder. | | What would be interesting is the combination of vertical | mushroom grows and vertical hydro culture. | | Imagine a tube/tower of mycelium, but also allowing the | cannabis to grw out of the tube/tower... and having the | root systems intertwined, but the problem therein is that | the diff in the mycelium being perennial as opposed to | the cannabis being annual... | monetus wrote: | I've experimented with vertical farming greens and | mushrooms together; figuring out the schedule for the | different colors of light can be a bit of a pain, but I | used LEDs. - I stacked tote bins that I had drimmeled to | interlock with eachother like a greenhouse. I don't think | hydro would be possible without a super specialized | fungus. If you ward off infections, regular hardwood | based edible mushrooms work in dirt with vegetables. The | mycelium doesn't seem to particularly help though. Greens | and most edible mushrooms come from different substrates. | I've yet to really look, but I suspect most desirable | mushrooms won't be the best mutualists. There will | probably be some that are more than a little valuable in | balancing a polyculture though. I really want to find | those pairs and groups, like we've discovered in say oaks | or orchids, where they seemed to have evolved together. | | Aside: Mushrooms are perennial but the mycelium doesn't | always die away. And some are selfish in not so | mutualistic ways too. | solomonb wrote: | Nitpick, but there are certainly parasitic fungi which do | not have a symbiotic relationship with plants. Also only | some fungi have a mycorrhizal relationship with plants. | Most are saprophytic meaning they decompose dead organic | material. | | This is of course extremely beneficial and required for a | closed ecosystem, but the symbiotic relationship isn't as | direct as mycorrhizal fungi and is really part of a much | more complex network of soil organisms that all need to | be at play. Simply introducing a saprophytic fungi to | your soil will probably not result in any benefits to | your indoor cannabis garden. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-03-04 23:00 UTC)