Mycoremediation, sometimes referred to as fungi remediation or mushroom remediation, uses fungi instead of bacteria to break down waste. Mycoremediation can be an economical and effective strategy to degrade various recalcitrant, persistent and toxic pollutants like polyaromatic hydrocarbons, antibiotics, herbicides, insecticides, antifungal drugs, algal bloom, cyanotoxins, detergents, heavy metals, and plastic.
Fungi consume organic debris that no other organism we know about will, and they create soil. They can be used in filtration systems, and in fact fungi mycelium are being released throughout burn zones in California to trap toxic waste before it reaches our waterways and to accelerate the recovery of the burn areas. Mycelium can help to structurally bind together particles, which slows runoff and helps to keep soil in place. Some fungi are so tolerant of toxicity that they even grow on the site of the Chernobyl power plant.
Fungi are excellent at breaking down things like wood chips, sticks, stalks and leaves. They disassemble all the organic debris that falls in the autumn, making them a great post-harvest application. Fungi break down lignin and open up the cellulose and hemicellulose so bacteria and other soil-dwelling organisms can work on it.
Fungi take humidity from the air or the growing substrate and absorb it. Then they sweat it out on their tips and grow through it. What’s in that sweat are enzymes — it’s essentially their stomach fluid, and their stomachs are on the outside of their bodies. They’re swimming through this soup of enzymes, which are out in front of them, unlocking nutrients and breaking down organic matter into smaller molecules that they can absorb it right into their body, which is their mycelium.
Fungi are equipped to do the first level of disassembly of an herbicide molecule. Something like atrazine could be degraded to other triazines, or other different analogs. Then a secondary metabolite from that fungus may break it down a little further so it’s no longer a triazine. When a fungus reaches a dead-end in breaking down the atrazine, where it can do no more, it will sweat out a different metabolite that probably has some sugars in it. This will attract specific bacteria. In essence, the fungus selects its army of bacteria to perform the secondary and tertiary degradation. This is called a species sequence.
Finally, promoting fungal growth has the capacity to vermicompost by default, because fungi produce octanol, a chemical attractant for worms. Mycelium can vector a worm from more than 10 feet away. Myceliated debris — the leaves or wood chips colonized by the mushroom mycelium — is one of the worms’ favorite food sources. A surplus of worms will produce beneficial castings as a byproduct.
Andaman Ag sells a mycoremediation product to help chemically toxic soils recover from over-application of various ag chemicals and to reduce heavy metals found in various soil profiles. We also sell Pacific Gro Oceanic Fish Hydrolysate that has a major fungal component to its composition.
