Revisiting an old concept - adding a mushroom module to the Sustainable Living Machine

Submitted by Sudhir Kade on Mon, 08/13/2007 - 16:26.

Having discussed the modification of classic aquaculture systems to be truly integrative in production of terrific tilapia, vitrious veggies, and cultivated compost I feel like there is no time better to integrate our toxic toxin mediating and mitigating mushroom strategy.

At a prior seminar on slow food at the Cleveland Botanical Garden I addressed the importance of integrating innovative approaches to bioremediation of environmental toxins like lead and mercury. Certainly a synergistic approach would be to use the proactive and proven bioremediation of said hazards with mushroom power.

To address this issue more specifically, I'll focus on the mushroom power alone - to understand how this integrates with the truly sustainable living machine mechanism outlined here, we need only to realize that the mushrooms would feed optimally on the waste from the other components of this system.

As for the mushrooms themselves, these would be grown under conditions as optimal as could be recreated within the transformative center we know and love as the Star Neighborhood Development project, and more specifically the old Hough Bakery Building at Lakeview and Euclid. Connections that should be available through inroads in participation as Technology Chair for Beaming Bioneers Cleveland include one of the world's foremost mushroom experts and advocates, Paul Stamets.

Stamets authored the infamous tome How Mushrooms Can Save the World and possesses countless patents on various valuable strains of shrooms - from bioremediating ones to eating ones, and a few in betweeen which seem to battle more outlandish-seeming applications like the mitigation of termite infestation of the home. As Stamets and so many others have pointed out, that the mycelial webs that mushrooms manifest in natural growth states often mirror other growth patterns - such as the one embodied by our own World Wide Web (internet).

To bring this to more practical application, it will be useful to investigate the potential for inexpensive acquisition of seed-forming startup growths of mushroom strains to specifically ameliorate East Cleveland challenges.

I identify these as follows:

1. Bioremediating mushrooms that specific mitigate lead toxicity. This

strain already exists to soil-enrich and clear toxic buildup of lead within soil - contributed by lead paint content but more prolifically and potently by unleaded gasoline through ages of industrialization.

2. Growing various strains of edible mushrooms like Shittake shrooms which are valued as tasty treats as well as biorich botanicals. Shittake complex is a newly coveted component of cosmetics.

3. Researching other invaluable functional shrooms to then offer as an integrated service for East Cleveland homes in sore need of revamping - i.e. termite infestation mitigation.

I've already identified a list of local mushroom growers and it seems like a next logical step will be to outreach for opportunity to acquire seed startup materials. Suggestions or offers of assistance from the community at large would be most welcome. Thanks!

Mushroom Mine?

I rarely add comments directly to my own posts but since noone's chippin' in ...

 

There could be an interesting intersection and synergy with the Eden Project as well.  If we take the path of least resistance and assume we were to go beyond mere prototyping to the construction of an entire labyrinth -world, we'd be smart to start with minimally used or soon-to-be defunct mines globally.  We have an underutilized mine of our own here in Cleveland (Cargill) which spans miles below Lake Erie.  The cool, damp climes of the Cargill mines might make for excellent shared space in which both aquaponic and mushroom systems can be explored and best exploited (in the best possible sense).

So near term, there coulld be a valuable connection made between the folks at Cargill and one of numerous growers of invaluable organic growths, shrooms included.  I'll certainly look into this and see if some fortitudinal follow through might yield opportunity.  In the meantime, researching optimal growth conditions and making these locally out of the Hough versus what is produced naturally at Cargill would be interesting to determine.  With Cargill, having temperature regulation inherent as well as an entire lake of fresh water in the immediate vicinity make this a virtual no-brainer.

Let's see what we can come up with -  details forthcoming.

Join the club

Hey Sudhir--great thoughts are often met with deafening silence.  But I hear you Horton!  After we stop trying to be other places...we will discover our own strengths.  The rest of the planet is scrambling to survive.  My cousin in Europe travels all over the world helping countries to desalinate their water.  And here we are--sitting on liquid gold.  I hope we can claim, before I die, to be the first car-free city in America, our own energy suppliers, and the first city to feed its own citizens.  These ideas excite me--are we alone Sudhir?!

solitude no more

no, I believe there are other bright brave souls that consider themselves creative progressives.  For now we'll start with us!

Thanks for the backup :-)