Mycology
The Magic of Mushrooms
As a team of mycologists, we specialize in using varieties of fungi that help improve our lives. The fungal kingdom is vast and the scientific community is only beginning to understand how to work with these organisms and the services that they provide to humans. We work with fungi in agricultural systems, to improve habitats, in mushroom production, and even to remediate moldy apartments. With most environmental issues, fungi can help us find a solution.
Mycology Services
Mushroom
Production Consulting
• Hobby Growers
• Commercial Facilities
• Facility Design for
Mycology Business Startups
Technical Lab Work
• Culture Improvement
• Fungal Culture Isolation/Preservation
• Workflow Improvement
Spawn Production
• Spawn Sales
• Substrate Sourcing
• Laboratory Design & Setup
• Agar Work/Liquid Culture
Mycoremediation
• Mycofiltration of Wastewater &
Hydrocarbon Pollutants
• Apply Fungi to Contaminated Soils
• Apply Indigenous Fungi to Damaged Soils
A Historic Connection to Fungi
Fungi are such a unique and extraordinarily diverse kingdom of organisms unlike anything else on the planet. Scientists are still trying to understand the complex and essential ecosystem functions fungi serve in our world, but in the meantime scientists and citizen scientists are finding new applications in which fungi can benefit humans every day.
Humans have been intimately interacting with fungi since before history. More recently, but still thousands of years ago, humans figured out that moist grain would ferment under anaerobic conditions. A single celled fungus (bakers yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae) is responsible for this marvelous conversion of sugars to alcohol, and thus the production of the first adult beverages. Humans found that if flour mixed with water, allowed to ferment by this same microbe, and then this mixture was baked we could produce bread. The dough was able to rise due to the presence of yeast that colonized the moist flour and began to digest the starches. When this is heated in the oven the CO2 from the yeast causes the ‘airiness’ in the dough that we know as bread.
In Service to Glorious Fungi
We have come a long way with baking bread and brewing but those are some of the earliest professions still being practiced to this day. Now we are able to digest plastic, make fungal fabrics, remediate the environment, and sustain the planet, all thanks to fungi. Mycologists and soil scientists are also beginning to understand how fungi operate in our soils and how they intricately interact with the organisms around them.
Fungi are omnipresent and thus serve many different functions within a given system. At Mycophyte Solutions we work with fungi in a number of different industries. Having a broad understanding of how fungal organisms grow and operate allows us to apply different fungi in various settings to get different results.
When teaching clients about fungi, one of the first steps may be setting up a laboratory to have sterile space to be able to culture these microorganisms. We have set up labs on a number of scales; everything from converting bathrooms to labs in a grow tent to entire rooms converted with a double door autoclave. Once we have a work area with the appropriate equipment, our ability to incorporate fungi into all aspects of our lives greatly increases.
