Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World - Softcover

Stamets, Paul

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1580085792 ISBN 13: 9781580085793

Publisher: Ten Speed Press, 2005

Mycelium Running is a manual for the mycological rescue of the planet. That’s right: growing more mushrooms may be the best thing we can do to save the environment, and in this groundbreaking text from mushroom expert Paul Stamets, you’ll find out how.
 
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).
 
In this comprehensive guide, you’ll find chapters detailing each of these four exciting branches of what Stamets has coined “mycorestoration,” as well as chapters on the medicinal and nutritional properties of mushrooms, inoculation methods, log and stump culture, and species selection for various environmental purposes. Heavily referenced and beautifully illustrated, this book is destined to be a classic reference for bemushroomed generations to come.

From the Publisher:

A manual for healing the earth and creating sustainable forests through mushroom cultivation, featuring mycelial solutions to water pollution, toxic spills, and other ecological challenges.

Mycotechnology is part of a larger trend toward using living systems to solve environmental problems and to restore ecosystems.

Covers mycorestoration (biotransforming stripped land), mycofiltration (creating habitat buffers), mycoremediation (healing chemically harmed environments), and mycoforestry (creating truly sustainable forests).

More than 300 full-color photographs.

About the Author:

PAUL STAMETS, founder of Fungi Perfecti (www.fungi.com), has been a dedicated mycologist for more than thirty years. He is the 1998 recipient of the Collective Heritage Institute’s Bioneers Award and the 1999 recipient of the Founder of a New Northwest Award from the Pacific Rim Association of Resource Conservation and Development Councils. Stamets has written five books on mushroom cultivation, use, and identification and numerous articles and scholarly papers on medicinal, culinary, and psycho-active mushrooms. His books Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms and The Mushroom Cultivator (co-author) have long been hailed as the definitive texts on mushroom cultivation.

• Publisher: Ten Speed Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 1580085792
• ISBN 13: 9781580085793
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 356