Maximum Yield USA March 2018 | Page 46

hydroponics & mycology “ Mushrooms represent one of the fastest growing specialty crops worldwide, a growth driven by increased demand for locally grown product as part of a healthy diet.” 44 feature Take the pizza boxes that contain fats, oils, and meat and cheese residue. “They’re not suitable for adding directly to a compost pile because they would change the microbial community. But fungi break things down to a condition where they’re suitable to compost. In a sense, it’s sort of like pre-composting a product before it hits the actual compost pile. “Mushrooms are the quintessential decomposers of the planet, turning almost anything into a form that can be readily utilized by other systems,” says Pryor. One of his research projects involves taking spent substrate to make compost teas to add to plants in hydroponic or greenhouse systems that will provide plant nutrition and increase plant health by stimulating the plants defense responses. Another idea under study is taking used substrate and packing it into long tubes like the straw berm bumpers found on road cuts to contain erosion. Using that same process, the tubes packed with substrate are laid in front of areas where dirty water moves into watersheds. That water would then filter through the berms, which would bioremediate some of the wastewater pollutants like insecticides, pesticides, and petroleum products. “We also use the spent substrate to feed insects, taking things insects wouldn’t normally eat and convert- ing them into a fungus-degraded substrate combina- tion that insects can now utilize. Then, we can use the insects for protein sources for animal feed or perhaps for human consumption.” Pryor says the protein content issue is significant, as is the ability of these miniature pharmaceutical factories to provide micronutrients and vitamins. “They’re 40 per cent dry weight protein,” says Pryor. “They contain all nine essential amino acids, are high in B and D2 vitamins, and have a higher digestibility index.” Calling mushrooms “the protein source we should send into space,” he notes: “We can grow protein in a lot of different sources, but mushrooms have an advantage because of their pharmaceutical properties—antioxidants, anti- tumor, anti-inflammatory—all the medicinal properties that make them superior. You can’t just discount that. If we’re going to send astronauts into space, millions and millions of miles away from home, and say, ‘Here’s your protein source,’ we’re going to have to have some value-added, and mushrooms provide that.”