Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World

Product Information

In Mycelium Running (Ten Speed Press 2005), Stamets explores the use and applications of fungi in bioremediation—a practice called mycoremediation. Stamets details methods of termite and ant control using nontoxic mycelia, and describes how certain fungi may be able to neutralize anthrax, nerve gas, and smallpox. [1] [2] He includes the following with regard to the mycelium: This is the kind of book I love: highly factual and practical and mixed with the spiritual content that sets the great writers apart from all the rest.“ Stamets’s best work to date, Mycelium Running provides a wealth of information showing how fungal mycelia and mushrooms can profoundly improve the quality of human life. Should be mandatory reading for government policy makers.” Stamets' detailed accounts of his own experiments and discoveries, and the broad possibilities these could create for the future of forestry, food and generally looking after the natural world.

A paradigm-changing book. Stamets’s visionary insights are leading to a whole new understanding of how mushrooms, scarcely seen and rarely appreciated, regulate the earth’s ecosystems.“ This book is definitely more complicated to understand (I'll reread it several times and I'm pretty sure I'll continue to discover fascinating things with each reading). More support for determining what mushrooms are native to your area or could be cultivated outdoors in your climate--maybe a world map with annotations? This is a concern for those of us in the arid southwest with less organic content in soils, bacteria-dominant carbon cycles, and not much of a cold season. John Norris, former deputy commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and founder of the Bioterrorism Institute Stamets was the recipient of the "Bioneers Award" from The Collective Heritage Institute in 1998,[4] as well as the "Founder of a New Northwest Award" from the Pacific Rim Association of Resource Conservation and Development Councils in 1999. He was also named one of Utne Reader's "50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World" in their November–December 2008 issue. In February 2010, Paul received the President's Award from the Society for Ecological Restoration: Northwest Chapter, in recognition of his contributions to Ecological Restoration. His work was featured in the documentary film The 11th Hour.[5] He has also been featured in the eco-documentary films Dirt (film)[6] and 2012, Time for a Change (film).[7]Various fun facts about gourmet, medicinal and toxic mushrooms. These were enjoyable, along with the anecdotes and studies behind these findings. I won't be attempting truffle or chanterelle cultivation anytime soon, but I appreciated the warning that our regular button mushrooms should be sourced responsibly, since they can take up dangerous levels of heavy metals depending on their origin. The overall impression and story that Stamets tells about fungi, mycelium and the role they have to play in the world. I drink a lot of coffee. So that means a lot of coffee grounds accumulate in my compost, and a few months ago I looked at that and wondered if it could be used to grow mushrooms. This book is a manual for the mycological rescue of the planet. Setting the stage for the mycorestoration revolution, Mycelium Running unveils new methods for growing mushrooms, generating mycelium, and implanting mushroom colonies into the environment. Capitalizing on the digestive power of mycelium, this pioneering book shows how to strengthen sustainability of habitats while providing a multitude of biological benefits. Based upon the premise that habitats and humans (animals) have immune systems, and that mushrooms are the beneficial bridges for both, Mycelium Running marks the dawn of a new era: the use of mycelial membranes for ecological health. Linking mushroom cultivation, permaculture, ecoforestry, bioremediation and soil enhancement, Stamets makes the case that mushroom farms can be reinvented as healing arts centers, steering ecological evolution for the benefit of humans living in harmony with its inhabitants. Four components of mycorestoration are described in detail: But the woo was dispensed with as the author dove into the details and the science, and it was incredibly informative. Actually, too informative, but given that I live in a smallish urban apartment, that threshold is actually very low.

Chapter 1: as a manifesto of possible things, it's a good read. But there's a lot of conjecture, "I suppose it could"s and generally big ideas that have very little grounding in much apart from Stamets' own musing (which whilst undoubtedly have a basis in his own extensive experimentation, are pretty wild). The basic science goes like this: Microscopic cells called “mycelium”–the fruit of which are mushrooms–recycle carbon, nitrogen, and other essential elements as they break down plant and animal debris in the creation of rich new soil. What Stamets has discovered is that we can capitalize on mycelium’s digestive power and target it to decompose toxic wastes and pollutants (mycoremediation), catch and reduce silt from streambeds and pathogens from agricultural watersheds (mycofiltration), control insect populations (mycopesticides), and generally enhance the health of our forests and gardens (mycoforestry and myco-gardening). I really want to continue learning about mushrooms (any book recommendations are welcome), hunting them, appreciating them, tasting them and following Paul's work closely.I was looking for a general introduction to mushrooms and their myriad uses. This book gave me that and much more. The first part of the book goes into great detail about the amazing uses of mushrooms, from cleaning up toxic waste, to rehabilitating landscapes devastated by fire, over-harvesting, or pests, to cancer prevention, to facilitating the growth of other agricultural products. And oh, by the way, food. Solid overview of fungi's ecological potential - from repairing deforestation to cleaning up toxic/radioactive waste to even fighting insect pests, this was probably my favorite part of the book. These are important and timely findings, and should be more popular than they currently are. Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World is the sixth book written by American mycologist Paul Stamets. Clear introduction to the major groups of fungi - saprophytic, endophytic, and parasitic, as well as brown rot vs white rot. I also liked that he went over general fungal structure and life cycles, which is important for understanding the rest of the book. I”m pretty sure Stamets mentions somewhere in that book that decomposition by ’shrooms releases much of the involved biological carbon as gas, primarily as carbon dioxide. I don’t recall any mention of better mechanisms, though. The gist, as I recall it, is that this is the natural way of recycling nutrients to create healthy soil, with the implication that it’s good, and the best we can hope for.

One year ago I didn't know anything about mushrooms and now it's a topic I always want to know more about. Repeated rhapsodizing, mostly in the first third of the book. I don't know about the rest of the audience, but when I'm reading anything marketed as scientific nonfiction, I expect science every step of the way. Phrases like "mushrooms are shamanic souls, spiritually tuned into their homelands," "mushrooms are forest guardians," "ancient mycological wisdom," "collective fungal consciousness," and, inexplicably, "chi power" take away from the overall message. I get it, the guy is passionate about (and may worship) mushrooms; I'm passionate about birds; someone else is passionate about cats. Maybe this is his attempt to connect with the general public. But language like the above is more suited to an everyday conversation than a scientific text. There isn't a study out there that can prove the "shamanic soul" or "chi power" of a mushroom, and at the end of the day I don't want to know how much you love the mushroom, just why it should matter to me and humanity - which is the point, right? Stamets makes you daydream about the endless possibilities that the fungal world offers even while reading a book that is closer to being a textbook than a novel.

Growing Gourmet & Medicinal Mushrooms ★ The Mushroom Cultivator ★ Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World ★ Mycelium Running ★ From Bears & Trees to Mushrooms & Bees ★ The role of oxalic acid and calcium oxalates in sequestering carbon dioxide and building the carbon bank The author of numerous books and papers on the subject of mushroom identification and cultivation, Stamets has discovered four new species of mushrooms. He is an advocate of the permaculture system of growing, and considers fungiculture a valuable but underutilized aspect of permaculture. He is also a leading researcher into the use of mushrooms in bioremediation, processes he terms mycoremediation and mycofiltration. Made the mistake of trying to take on Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms first. This is way more accessible as a reference-- more like a high school textbook. This visionary and practical book should be an instant classic in the emerging science of how to use nature’s wisdom and fecundity to rescue the earth and ourselves from the unwelcome consequences of human cleverness.“

The basic science goes like this: Microscopic cells called “mycelium”--the fruit of which are mushrooms--recycle carbon, nitrogen, and other essential elements as they break down plant and animal debris in the creation of rich new soil. What Stamets has discovered is that we can capitalize on mycelium’s digestive power and target it to decompose toxic wastes and pollutants (mycoremediation), catch and reduce silt from streambeds and pathogens from agricultural watersheds (mycofiltration), control insect populations (mycopesticides), and generally enhance the health of our forests and gardens (mycoforestry and myco-gardening).How valid some of these frustrations are definitely depend on the idea of where legitimate knowledge comes from. Does the only source of truth come from peer-reviewed journals and establishment sources, or are there equally valid forms of knowledge creation that run in parallel with the scientific establishment? Notwithstanding that it's not a simple binary, I found there was often not enough substance to validate some of Stamets' bolder claims, even though I think pretty much everything he's doing should be more heavily researched and tested (and I think in the years since first publication, there's been some vindication of his initial ideas and experiments). The second part of the book is a manual of how to grow mushrooms and mycelium in various habitats and for various uses. It seemed to be targeted primarily to organizations and governmental entities that might be interested in one or more of the remedial uses of mushrooms, but there was some information that would be useful for the small private grower. I skimmed most of this, since I'm not planning to go into mushroom production. But you should at least skim it to get a flavor of the different ways it can be handled. This is the first book to give the Kingdom of the Fungi its proper place in the scheme of things. It is the most important book on nature that I’ve seen in years.” From a purely scientific perspective, I enjoyed what this book had to offer. From a literary perspective, however, I ran into some serious stylistic problems. This book, from my understanding, is scientific literature meant for the general public, to pique their interest in mycology and hopefully spur more dialogue about its importance. But such scientific literature has a threefold job - it has to be accessible, persuasive, and authoritative all at once. It can't bog down the reader with excess terminology, nor can it dumb things down too much or become overzealous; otherwise it loses credibility. I hate to say it, but Mycelium Running falls into the latter categories. The first 1/3 suffers from these common science-writing traps, while the rest read better though still with occasional flaws. Overall, this book could have been better written, edited, and organized. But to be fair I'll review it separately on what I did and didn't like.