Episode 05: Eco-Scrubbing Fungi

Fungi Town

Hi citizen! Welcome back to Fungi Town!

This week, we focus on the amazing ability some fungi have to clean our environment. Lots of people enjoy growing and eating oyster mushrooms, but did you know that they can also clean diesel fuel and motor oil out of the soil? They're not the only species of fungi skilled at breaking down toxic materials. Since fungi don't have mouths and stomachs, they have to digest their food outside of their bodies and then reabsorb the nutrient soup that results. These digestive secretions, known as enzymes, are great at breaking big molecules (like petrochemicals) down into smaller, digestable ones. Join me as I talk to two mycoremediation experts about the great possiblilites and the challenges of cleaning our Earth with fungi.

To read about how brown rot fungi can be used in the biofuel industry, go here.

To learn more about dog waste and waterways, check out this pamplet by the Athens-Clarke County Transportation and Public Works Department.

To find out more about Athens' chicken laws, check out this article in The Flagpole.

Special thanks to my guests: Tradd Cotter of Mushroom Mountain in South Carolina. His book is Organic Mushroom Farming and Mycoremediation, published by Chelsea Green, contains several remediation projects you can do at home with a limited budget. And to Levon Durr of Fungaia Farm.

If you like this podcast, please consider becoming a patron. To get access to special mini episodes and a sweet vinyl sticker, just visit www.fungitown.com and click the green "become a patron" button in the upper right corner of your screen. How about leaving a review? Leaving a review on Apple Podcasts will go a long way toward helping other listeners find their way to Fungi Town. New episodes are released every two weeks. Join me next time, when we talk about the fascinating relationship between fungi and orchids.

Fungi Town is written, directed and produced by Jen Parrilli and hosted on Podbean. Theme Music was created using the Bandimal App from Yatatoy. Defunked theme music is Fminor_Funk_BassGroove_100bpm by GRD-music, sound effects were Chopping Onion by ObieDaz and Butter Sizzling by hmoosher, all used via Creative Commons license through Freesound.

You can find Fungi Town on Facebook. Twitter, and Instagram: @fungitownpod or email at fungitownpod[at]gmail[dot]com.