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Hydroponic Mushrooms? Inside the World of Liquid Mycelium · Hydroponics Daily

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome back to Hydroponics Daily, your go-to podcast for everything soilless cultivation.
• 0:06
  I'm your host, Dr. Russell Sharp, the founder of Utreema Ltd.
• 0:10
  And I mentioned on the previous podcast that I was interested in finding out
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  if you could grow mushrooms hydroponically.
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  And by that I mean, without the use of soil,
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  or really without cocoa or peat,
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  can we do a true hydroponic grow of mushrooms in an inert media or in a liquid media?
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  So we're going to do a fact-finding mission to find out if this is possible.
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  So unlike plants where we provide them with light and nutrients and then they photosynthesize,
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  they take CO2 from the air, they take the oxygen
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  and the hydrogen from the water and they make
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  sugars and they they're what we call autotrophs fungi
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  are not autotrophs they can't make their own food they're
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  like you they have to get it from organic matter either from a plant or sometimes
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  from an animal and they can live off living things like the pathogens of your
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  plants like mildew and and budgeroth and things like this, or they can live
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  off dead and decaying matter.
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  And that's what most edible mushrooms do. They are living off dead or decaying
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  matter, like the button mushroom and oyster mushrooms and things like this.
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  They feed off dead and decaying matter.
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  Exception would be something like a truffle, which I think is a mycorrhizae. Let me just check that.
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  Yep, that's a mycorrhizae. That's why it can't be cultured in a normal conventional
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  mushroom farm and has to be wild harvested.
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  So most of the ones we're talking about are saprotrophic fungi okay and a lot
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  of people consider fungi to be plants because they're,
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  non-motile they don't move and they live in soil normally and but they are more
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  closely genetically related to animals than they are plants and so that's something
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  you need to consider when we
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  look at growing them so i mentioned on a previous episode i would not grow.
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  Mushrooms commercially in the same place i was growing hydroponic crops
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  that's because the number one pest of mushrooms is
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  fungus gnats and if you get fungus gnats
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  in your grow room it's world of pain and so
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  you really want to avoid a big influx a big infestation of
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  fungus gnats coming in from and vice versa contaminating both
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  ones because a lot of the things that you use to control fungus
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  gnats in your grow room will be deleterious to your
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  mushroom cultivation and also you're not going
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  to need the lights as well so you get rid of the lights because mushroom cultivation
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  doesn't need lights the only lights you need are for you to work
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  your way around and look at your crops and look after it so if
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  we're getting rid of the soil what can and the organic matter
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  content of the soil what can be used to replace that well they're
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  going to need a food source so they can you can use pasteurized straw
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  for oyster mushrooms that's very common sterilized hardwood
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  sawdust for shiitake spent coffee
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  grounds is often used for urban mushroom cultivation
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  and even cardboard grain soil hulls
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  even corn cobs and the the bits
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  left over when you have corn on the cob so none
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  of these are soils they're just food source so in theory
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  that is hydroponics but really when we talk about hydroponics we're looking
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  at liquid culture and hydroponic mushrooms in its truest sense so this is where
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  you grow mycelium which is the groups of strands of.
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  Of mushrooms so mushrooms are made of hyphae which are
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  single celled strands and then they group together to
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  form a bit like the strands of a rope
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  formed to make one big rope think of the hyphae
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  as the single strands of cotton and the mycelium as the rope and so in liquid
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  culture the mycelium are suspended in nutrient-rich water often with sugar or
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  malt extract so that's to be super sterile apart from the fungus.
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  So there's no soil, no substrate, just fungal biomass floating and expanding
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  like a brain made of noodles.
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  All fungi are made from these hyphae.
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  So if you get a mushroom and cut it up and put it under a microscope,
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  you'll see that they are made up of hyphae.
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  Unlike a plant, which is made up of different types of tissue and things like
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  that, or a human, everything fungal-based is made of hyphae.
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  So some companies are developing mycelium bioreactors or stainless steel tanks
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  for growing mushroom tissue like breweries growing yeast so yeast is a single-celled
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  fungus but these ones these mycelium bioreactors can grow multiple stranded.
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  Fungi so can the
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  liquid grown mycelium fruit mushrooms directly well
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  usually no you still need to find a final
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  solid material for the mushroom to anchor to and
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  form its fruiting body so while you
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  could grow them up in a bioreactor these mycelium they
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  then have to be put onto something like sterile straw or
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  wood for it to produce the fruiting body
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  that you were going to eat now for the
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  mycelium there you can produce in
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  the bioreactor mycelium products like alternative meats
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  or flavorings things like corn is a fungus-based mycelium product that's grown
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  in a reactor and that happens at industrial scale but if you want to actually
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  produce a mushroom or a toadstool or something edible a structure then you do
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  need to move it from that liquid cultivation to a solid material.
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  Can they be grown on rockwool or perlite? Yes, you can grow it on a conventional.
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  Hydroponic grow media like that, but it's not, it is inefficient.
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  Rockwool and perlite offer structure, but no food. They are inert, they don't break down.
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  That's why we use them in hydroponics, because they don't rot,
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  and the mushroom wants to rot them.
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  So without any extra food, mushrooms would starve so
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  you'd have to soak your rock wool with sugars or
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  a nutrient broth and keep it sterile it's really
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  not the best option for that so you
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  can look at that and then you could also look at converting a
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  grow room or a grow facility or some hydroponic equipment
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  to grow toadstools or mushrooms
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  or in a with with peat or
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  cocoa and that's used that's very common not
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  true hydroponics but as close as probably the easiest way to do so why don't
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  we start calling it mycoponics or fungiponics you know if you've anyone's done
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  this please let me know if you've grown mushrooms in a liquid broth it could
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  be one of the way forwards there's a lot of interest in sort of.
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  The illegal areas for growing hallucinogenic psilocybin and also trying to make that legal.
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  So a lot of people are trying to make magic mushrooms and hallucinogenic mushrooms and cultivate them.
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  And people have got licenses to do that in many countries.
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  And there's a big push for producing psilocybin
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  that hallucinogenic compound found in a number of mushrooms for
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  control of depression drug-resistant depression so maybe and i think a lot of
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  home grown mushroom production will be the technology will be advanced because
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  of people doing it illicitly,
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  just like the hydroponic equipment was moved on.
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  A lot of vertical farmers have illicit cannabis growers to thank for the technology
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  that they use in their big industrial, highly invested farms.
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  And the same will go for the future mushroom production. I think the work that's
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  being done now for small scale.
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  Psilocybin magic mushroom production will actually
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  be although illegal will be
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  innovative and will produce a lot of workarounds for
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  small scale production so if you're
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  a hydroponic girl looking to expand your crop lineup without adding
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  soil you could probably try oyster mushrooms as a good start and pasteurized
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  straw or coffee grounds you could experiment with liquid culture jars or go
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  big and build a mycelium bioreactor it's not something i would do because i'm
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  a plant scientist and I tend to not get involved with anything that involves
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  animals or fungi unless I can help it.
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  We do do some work with biopesticides and culturing mildews here at Eutrema.
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  In a lab, we culture a mildew species that is used specifically only in black
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  grass, a weed of arable crops.
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  It's one of our big products, but that's as far as we get into mycology.
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  That's that for today what else can
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  we say there's obviously fungus gnats are the big pest if
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  you're in a liquid culture that's not going to be an issue your biggest
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  problem will be bacteria bacterial contamination and
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  controlling that and making sure you are compliant with all food safety regulations
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  relating to that there are a lot of nasty chemicals used on conventional fart
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  mushroom cultivation or certainly they used to be and that's why you should
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  always be advised to brush your mushrooms at the very least to get all the peat
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  off them because the peat contains some nasties.
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  You can wash your mushrooms, but they go a bit jelly, don't they?
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  They go a bit squidgy because of the chiting in them.
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  So I'm your host, Dr. Russell Sharp. You've been listening to Hydroponics Daily.
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  If you've enjoyed this fungal detour, let me know and I can bring you,
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  I could bring on a specialist mushroom scientist or a commercial grower to do
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  an even bigger dive next time.
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  So until next time, stay soil-less, enjoy your hydroponics, and I'll speak to you soon. Goodbye.