Notes from Paul Stamets' Talk in Philadelphia on May 2nd

Paul Stamets

The Wagner Free Science Institute

2 May 2014

Paul’s Hat

• Fomes fomentarius (a Hoof Polypore mushroom) aka Tinder mushroom – used to make Amadou (a spongy, flammable substance)
• Critical to our survival – used to carry fire
• Boil the Mushroom, it delaminates and is very flamable
• Hypocrates used as a medicine - A styptic (also spelled stiptic) is a specific type of antihemorrhagic agent that works by contracting tissue to seal injured blood vessels. Styptic pencils containastringents.

Article – They’re All Part Fungus - http://www.phschool.com/science/science_news/articles/they_part_fungus.html

Mycorrhizal Symbiosis book - http://www.amazon.com/Mycorrhizal-Symbiosis-Third-Edition-Sally/dp/0123705266

“Habitats have immune systems and mycelium is essential to communication.” (Paraphrazed)

Convince timber industry to chop and mulch rather than burn

• Produces faster growing trees
• Stores carbon rather than releasing it

Mushroom cultivation variables

• CO2 exposure determines length of stem
• Light exposure determines width of the cap

A Human foot covers ~ 300 miles of mycelium (may be inaccurate, I didn’t catch the number)

Small voids between strands of mycelium hold water.  As the voids lose water, micro communities of bacteria grow in the voids and help mushrooms.

Ratio of bacteria cells to human cells in the body:  100 to 1

Epigenesis – the ability to adapt with a network design

Japanese Slime mold experiment – Atsushi Tero et al. 2010

• Subway design optimization using slime mold

“Pairing with fungi during extinction events increases chances of survival.” (Paraphrazed)

Prototaxites – 30 foot tall giant mushroom that towered over all vegetation on earth in a time when no vegetation reached above ~2 feet.  Fossil of prototaxites was found in Saudi Arabia?  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI5frPV58tY#t=362)

Honey Mushroom - Armillaria

• parasitic, kills trees
• can create huge swirl patterns in trees

Mycellium is the immune system of the mushroom

Network structure creates resiliency

Enokitake Mushrooms

• Farmers growing these mushrooms showed significantly lower cancer rates

 Slide taken from Paul's presentation

Lion’s Mane Mushroom - Hericium erinaceus

• Contain Nerve Growth Factors that promote nerve cell growth
• Improving effects of the mushroom Yamabushitake (Hericium erinaceus) on mild cognitive impairment: a double-blind placebo-controlled clinical trial.
• By Mori K1, Inatomi S, Ouchi K, Azumi Y, Tuchida T.
• http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18844328
• Effects of Hericium erinaceus on amyloid β(25-35) peptide-induced learning and memory deficits in mice.
• By Mori K1, Obara Y, Moriya T, Inatomi S, Nakahata N.
• http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21383512
• Mice given amyloid plaque causing polypeptide
• Control mice react to new object, mice with amyloid plaques lose curiosity and problem-solving ability (navigating a maze)
• After ~21 days eating Lion’s Mane, the mice regained curiosity and maze-solving ability

Shiitake - Lentinula edodes

• Drying shiitake produces Vitamin D in mushroom
• UVB exposure skyrockets Vitamin D
• Dried Shiitake can produce Vitamin D and store it for years
• Control: 40 IU/mg
• Sunlight 10 hours: 46000 IU/mg
• UVB 14 hours: 267000 IU/mg

Stropharia - Wine Cap Mushroom - Garden Giant Mushroom

• Grows slowly in lab, quickly in soil / wood chips
• Inoculated swales with garden giant mushrooms
• Reduced e. coli in soil / water
• Mycofiltration / Mycoremediation
• Mycototoes – Woodchips, straw, water in large bin (with cracks for drainage)
• Ferment for 2 weeks (stinky, anaerobic)
• Drain
• Oxygen sterilizes anaerobic bacteria
• Mushrooms grow super fast
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSKQyMFw8GM
• 500 lb mycelium produces 100 lbs of mushrooms
• Mycototes make huge mushrooms
• Rain garden design to filter e. coli water with stropharia
• http://www.fungi.com/blog/items/mycofiltration-for-urban-storm-water-treatment-receives-epa-research-and-development-funding.html
• Oregon street cleaning project to clean storm water

Mycoremediation of oil spills

• Hemp bags, filled with grasses, fermented in salt water will grow mushrooms
• Used to corral oil slicks and break down hydrocarbons

Chaga (Inonotus obliquus) – Dangerous to environment when harvested commercially

Stamets model for permaculture – in “Growing Gourmet” book by Paul stamets

Agarikon - Laricifomes officinalis - endorheic mycorrhizal fungi - Nicknamed “elixir of life”

• Contains compounds effective against various flu/pox virus strains
• Doesn’t Rot, rather petrifies the supporting tree branch with calcium oxalate
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI5frPV58tY#t=691
• Anti-tuberculosis / anti-microbial properties
• Google: “Small Pox Stamets”

73% of Anti-cancer drugs come from natural sources

Worst Cancer – Merkel Cell Carcinoma

• “Nghiem Hypothesis”  - Dr. Paul Nghiem MD, PhD

Turkey Tail Mushroom (Trametes versicolor)

• Effective in studies against Breast Cancer
• Seem to de-cloak tumor cells from the body’s immune system

Herb Spiral Project in Delaware

Before and after the most recent work day.

I've been working on building an herb spiral in my parents yard in Delaware. It's just about finished.

An herb spiral is a permaculture design that allows you to grow up to 16 different herbs all requiring different conditions, from watercress and mint to rosemary and oregano. The design channels water from the top of the garden to the small pond at the bottom.  The structure creates microclimates through variation in sunlight and soil moisture. We'll place plants at the top that need less water, and plants at the bottom (near the pond) that need more water. The north side will have shade-loving herbs and the south side will have herbs that need more light. The idea is to grow a wide variety of herbs that will be available for the kitchen.

It's a good idea to place an herb spiral close to the kitchen. That way, if you're cooking dinner, you can easily cut fresh herbs for your recipes.

If you want to learn more, or build your own, detailed instructions can be found here: http://fuentesfarm.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/spiral-herb-garden-chart/

NIWA - Smartphone Control of your Hydroponic Garden

I recently learned about a new product concept for an indoor hydroponic garden that looks like it has potential.

NIWA (www.getniwa.com) is a pretty slick looking 5 liter recirculating hydroponic system with lights and automation controlled from your smartphone.

Compared to the Aquafarm from Back to the Roots, this looks like a more serious food production system. The Aquafarm is a nice, compact system that can grow some herbs and is a good introduction to aquaponic gardening, the NIWA looks to be able to produce some serious food, and I suspect the price will reflect this increase in performance. NIWA claims to be able to grow tomatoes, strawberries, orchids, or medical plants.

I've been in contact with Aga, one of the founders of NIWA, and asked about integration with a fish tank for an aquaponic system. While they haven't yet worked with any aquaponic experts to determine what would need to be done to the system to integrate aquaponics, they will be offering a maker-kit on the kickstarter which will include the electronics and gear inside with instructions to build the system on your own. I can imagine this could be used to hack an aquaponic version.

Some of my favorite features:

Automatic nutrient and irrigation adjustment for different plants. You don't have to do additional research, just tell NIWA what you're growing, and the nutrients and irrigation cycles are adjusted to optimize growth. Or, if you want to experiment, you can manually adjust the settings.

Automatic heating, ventilation, humidity, and lighting control. NIWA claims to monitor climate. In the system and automatically adjusts for optimal growth. If there is enough light in the room, the lights will be off.  If the room isn't bright enough, NIWA will sense this and turn on the grow lights.

Cloud connectivity let's you monitor and adjust the system from anywhere with an internet connection.

NIWA is getting ready to launch their kickstarter campaign on Monday, May 12, 2014.

The kicstarter prices are not too bad.  I don't know if it'll fit into my budget, but I definitely want to try this thing out!

www.getniwa.com

Urban Agriculture vs. Conventional Agriculture

I just read a great article that I wanted to share.  On the Vertical Food Blog, this article describes the benefits of Urban Agriculture (local and sustainable) compared to traditional agriculture methods.  Even more motivation!

http://verticalfoodblog.com/urban-agriculture-and-better-food/

Weekend Gardening Projects

An Herb Spiral in Germany

This weekend was beautiful here in New Jersey and Delaware.  I finally had the opportunity to start work on my garden projects.  I recently bought a Big Bag Bed raised bed, inspired by this youtube video from John from GrowingYourGreens.com.  It’s a pre-made raised bed made from durable cloth, which allows greater drainage than a normal raised bed, and induces air pruning of the roots, which should help growth.  I also convinced my landlord, who lives on the first floor, to buy 2 of these Big Bag Beds and let me help him with his own garden.  I was hoping to fill the beds on Saturday, but I couldn’t find coco coir anywhere around me.  I tried Home Depot, Lowes, and two local garden centers, and called a bunch more.  Everyone had peat moss, but no one had coco coir.  Peat moss is extremely harmful to the environment to harvest and is very unsustainable.  I refuse to use it if at all possible. 

So, I ordered some coco coir and Azomite Rock Dust on Amazon, which should arrive tomorrow, and then I’ll fill the beds.  I also need to get either seeds or plants to put in the bed.

My Plan is to loosely follow this design.

On Sunday, I went to Delaware to work on some projects at my parent’s house.  I’m building an herb spiral with a small pond, according to the plans here:

Herb spiral in progress.  It'll have a sprinkler system to water the garden from the water in the little pond.

My dad and girlfriend helped out, and we got the pond hole dug, and some decorative bricks laid down to mark out the garden.  We also started filling it in, but we’ll need more stones to complete the garden on a future weekend.

The coldframe

My dad had saved an old window that he got through his work, and build a cold frame.  Since it’s not that cold out now, I was planning to use this to start some seeds, for now.

Starting some seeds

I asked my girlfriend to start some seeds that I had with some of our kitchen compost and garden soil mix, and we seeded some tomatoes, lettuce, kale, spinach, strawberries, basil, and arugula.  I’m not sure if it’s too early or late to start seeds, or if I’m doing it right, but I’m just going to go for it.

I'm starting with just the IBC tote, and once it's running well I'll add the 50 gallon stock tank as an additional grow bed.

IBC Tote aquaponic garden

The last thing that we worked on was the IBC tote aquaponic setup that I obtained last Fall.  It’ll sit in a small dirt patch and in the winter we’ll build a thin but tall greenhouse frame from PVC to shelter the setup.  I still need a threaded PVC connector and to set up the bell siphon before it’s ready, but most of the plumbing and the pump are ready.  I’m also getting an inline hose water filter tomorrow so that I can filter the water that I fill it with.  Hopefully within the next month this will be pumping water and holding fish!

It was a busy day, but the beautiful weather kept everyone’s spirits high.  Happy Easter!

SAGE Collective Aquaponic setup in Trenton, NJ

I recently disassembled the 105 gallon aquaponic setup in Philly, but I'm reusing some of those components for a system in Trenton, NJ at an Art Collective's studio space.  The SAGE Coalition is a group of local artists that do public murals, run a community garden, and host art gallery shows at their studio.  The Gandhi Garden is a beautiful community garden transformed by Graham Apgar, Jonathan Gordon, and other members of the SAGE Coalition and local residents.  I've only met Graham and Jonathan so far, but I'm excited to meet more of the artists here.  Here's what the Gandhi Garden looks like:

Here's some photos of our work so far:

Each shelf has a fluorescent light underneath.  I think we might remove one shelf to give each row some more space.  The goal is to eventually have the entire shelf be aquaponic grow beds connected to the 55 gallon tank on the floor.  Unfortunately, some rocks got into my aquarium filter, so I'll just be using a pump with no additional filter.  I am planning on making a radial flow filter to test out, but it's not a priority at the moment.  I just received the pump in the mail, and am waiting for a uni-seal to arrive, then we'll get some water flowing to the grow bed.

I'm currently off-gassing the chlorine from the tap water.  The pH is balanced, and I've added some ammonia to start cycling.  Hopefully in a few weeks this will be flowing!

Apartment Aquaponic System disassembled

The 105 gallon system set up in my friend's apartment in Philly was disassembled yesterday.  We'll be moving most of the components to the greenhouse that we're building in Wilmington, Delaware.  We already have a 330 gallon IBC tank waiting, and we're going to be building a PVC hoop house.  We'll be attaching the grow bed from the apartment system to the IBC system as well.  Also, I have obtained some old windows to make some coldframes at the same location.  Lots of excitement coming this Spring, but it was a little sad to take apart the system that I had worked so hard and long on.  We did harvest about 2 supermarket bags full of kale, and I filet'd the tilapia we had living in the apartment system.  I'm sure I'll have tons of updates and photos from the Wilmington garden this Spring.