Week 1: Initial Research, Machine-Mediated Microbial Art, Mycelium Samples

Welcome back to my blog! 

This week, I conducted an extensive review of existing literature on mycelium, its properties, and some of its applications, so I could begin to develop prototypes and plan out how many palettes I eventually want to experiment with! After a trip to the library, I picked up Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World, “a manual for the mycological rescue of the planet” (Stamets ) by Paul Stamets, an American mycologist and author of Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms. One interesting topic the book covers is mycorestoration, a process that utilizes fungi to restore ecosystems or clean up polluted environments. Mycorestoration harnesses the natural ability of fungi to degrade contaminants and restore ecological balance. In addition, Stamets discusses inoculation methods for growing mycelia and mushrooms with varying substrates. This was my starting point for researching how to make a substrate from scratch! 

This week, the pre-inoculated, dehydrated mushroom grow bag from Grow.Bio that I’d been working on (see Figure 1 for the loose process and image of how the mycelium turned out) was completed and now that I’m loosely familiar with the mycelium-growing process, I will be starting over and creating my own substrates! 

To achieve successful mushroom cultivation, picking an appropriate substrate is really important; the substrate serves as the primary source of nutrients for mushrooms during their development. Similar to how plants thrive in soils with varying characteristics, different mushroom species have different preferences as well. A few notes on the ideal substrate: it should be rich in woody, fibrous components such as lignin, cellulose, and hemicellulose, which are abundant in carbon, needs to be slightly acidic (with a PH level of about 5-6.5), needs a moisture content of 50-70%, and needs to be free of competing organisms, allowing ample space for the mushroom mycelium to thrive undisturbed, among other properties. Some substrates I plan on working with in the following weeks include straw, coffee grounds, cardboard, and coco coir and vermiculite. Once I’ve finished making my substrates, I’ll be able to inoculate them with mycelium from various mushrooms. I also spent a considerable time learning about how to properly pasteurize and sterilize a substrate. Both involve heating the substrate up to destroy existing bacteria or fungi, but pasteurization heats the substrate up to 185 degrees F, while sterilizing subjects the substrate to temperatures over 250 degrees F. 

At Genspace’s Biomaterials Open Studio, I worked on machine-mediated microbial art which involved using the Opentrons OT-2 pipetting robot (see Figure 2). I also learned about one member’s project using microbial pigments, which consume around 430 times less water than synthetic colorants and got to see some of Genspace’s mycelium samples (see Figure 3 for a sample mycelium block that’s been used for calligraphy purposes for a Tea Ceremony in Sunset Park)! 

See you next week! 

Figure 1.

Figure 2.

Figure 3.