Myco-remediation? Any success stories?

Jan 03, 2026 15:10:04

Has anyone tried and had success with myco-remediation for watershed protection?

I'm thinking similar to Paul Stamets TED talk...

I have access to free coffee bags, wood chips from storm debris and can propagate oyster mycelium for both automotive (motor oil, trace diesel, gas etc) residues on streets and to help reduce pasturing animal waste contaminating streams and downstream watersheds...

goals would be measurably greater aquatic biodiversity, less algae blooms, improved watershed water clarity, etc.

Jan 03, 2026 15:55:00

If I recall correctly, Paul gives some solid examples in his book Mycelium Running with examples involving utilizing bunker spawn. I'm not sure how much detail he gets into with his TED talk but that might be of interest to you.

Jan 03, 2026 18:00:17

Thanks Tim. I've perused that book, sounds like it's time to dig deeper. Appreciate the feedback!

Jan 04, 2026 18:07:55

Jp, I've tried, but haven't yet had the success I wanted. I'll share my experiences below in case it helps you or others have success sooner. Paul Stament's work was an inspiration to me as well.

For my first attempt I soaked bulk wood chips in a large kids pool for a few days, then drained and inoculated. Soaking for a few days stresses any prior mycelium giving your inoculation the advantage, but don't let it soak so long that the soaking wood chips go anaerobic (I think the recommendation was no more than 1 week). It was based on the method introduced by Paul Stamets which I thought he called "mycototes" for growing bulk King Stropharia in large agricultural crates, but I can't find the video right now. Colonization was very fast. I put the inoculated wood chips in a trench below our cow feeder where the sprinkler would wash off the manure from the rubber mats we had there to prevent mud. The system went anaerobic, I suspect because direct cow manure is so mucky that it overwhelmed the system, suggesting pre-filtering would be useful.

For my second attempt, I put bunker spawn (inoculated wood chips in burlap bags) 2 bags deep directly in a greywater flow (including kitchen sink flow). That one also failed, drying out and clogging. I suspect the influent needs to be better protected from our high desert and often windy environment, and mud. I probably should have let the bunker spawn get more inoculated first as well.

We're building a flush vermicomposting toilet this coming Spring, and I've thought about playing with a Mycofilter after the tertiary treatment and test performance before and after. I've also thought about trying it in our poultry coup, similar to this article. Keep us posted on your work!

Here is an excerpt from a couple email replies from Fungi.com where they provided additional resources back in 2019 when starting my first project:

Keep in mind Mycoremediation is still an experimental technology. If you end up deciding to start your own project, we are happy to provide cultivation advice and spawn, but we cannot guarantee that it will reduce contamination.

To read the methods and results of past experiments using Mycoberms to create an inoculated drain field, see the online article A Novel Approach to Farm Waste Management. For hydrocarbon remediation strategies; The Petroleum Problem. I attached more information on our study with the Washington Department of Transportation [link].

Our Pleurotus ostreatus is the same strain we used for our MycoBooms. Another species we have found to be very useful in remediation is Stropharia rugoso-annulata Wood Chip Spawn. You may want to consider utilizing both species and comparing them side by side. Oyster mushrooms have been shown to be capable of metal hyper-accumulation, though they can be more challenging to cultivate outdoors on a remediation-scale level than Stropharia. While the species we use are edible, we do not recommend consuming mushrooms that have been used for Mycorestoration.

Further experiments have been done to assess the removal of bacteria by such bags of myceliated wood chips; research results are available in our online article Mycofiltration Enters the Commons. Be sure to read and share the attached reports:
http://fungi.com/pdf/articles/Fungi_Perfecti_Phase_I_Report.pdf
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925857414002250
....
I have a couple of other references that may be helpful in your endeavors:
Our coworker, Alex Taylor, recently had his masters thesis manuscript published on Mycofiltration with Stropharia. You can read this here: http://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/10/9/1226/htm
One of the most comprehensive sources for research done on Mycoremediation is by Harbhajan Singh entitled Mycoremediation: Fungal Bioremediation.

Jan 04, 2026 20:56:57

Burton,

Wow, this is incredibly helpful; thank you very much!

Gives me a lot more to think about, I will be sure to leave some feedback on how things go. I will be sure to expect to iterate the solution a bit more than was initially in my head

Btw, love the idea of your vermicomposting toilet. Congrats on all your progress and thanks for the inspiration 🙏🏼