Fungi Matters with Peter McCoy

Hi friends, this is John. I'm passionate about developing regenerative agriculture systems that improve soil health, produce crops that are completely resistant to diseases and insects, and produce food of such an exceptional quality that we can have a legitimate conversation about growing food as medicine. I've been fortunate to meet many people with incredible knowledge and information about soil and plant systems. However, much of this knowledge and information is scattered all over the place. There are many incredible stories and a lot of knowledge that have not been widely shared. I founded Advancing eco Agriculture in 2006 to bring this knowledge together in a more coherent fashion and incorporate it into products and growing systems that growers can easily put into practice. It's my personal mission to have these regenerative agriculture systems become the mainstream globally, the status quo against which all other growing systems are compared to. To achieve this goal, I want to share the knowledge that we have learned in the last decade and make it available to everyone. These concepts and principles about regenerative systems can be applied anywhere, and when they're properly applied, they will increase farm profitability and resilience to climate stress. If you have any questions, suggestions, comments, or topics of ideas that you would like for me to discuss, please connect on social media or email me. JohnGenerativeAgriculturePodcast.com Be sure to sign up for our email list@regenerativeagriculturepodcast.com Hope you enjoy and thank you for listening.

Greetings friends. Welcome to the Regenerative Agriculture Podcast. I'm really excited with the guest we have today, Peter McCoy, the founder of Mycologos, the country's first mycology teaching school, where Peter describes how to grow fungi and how to introduce them into our ecosystems. Peter is also the author of a really incredible fungi textbook titled Radical Mycology. Peter, we're very excited to have you here with us today. Thank you for joining us.

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me on. I'm excited to dive into the often overlooked aspects of fungi in regenerative agriculture.

Peter, you've done some very interesting work with fungi over the last decade or more. Can you tell us a little bit about the pathway and the journey that you've been on? What has brought you to this point? And can you describe for us a little bit about the work that you're doing today?

Sure. So I picked up an interest in mycology when I was a teenager, about 15 or so, and it was among my many other interests, kind of a random hobby and curiosity that essentially over the years always stayed high on my list of interests and other Things came and went. But as with many other people, as you start to learn about this quite interesting science, you kind of can't let it go because it's so intriguing, so fascinating, so unusual, but also very important not only in the environment. Fungi are ecologically significant in many aspects, but also the implications for what applied mycology offers for humans and human design systems, food systems, building systems, societal organizational systems, and all those points of interest really stood out to me back then. And over the years, what I came to realize was that even though for me this topic was clearly quite interesting and important, most of the folks that I would meet and friends and family didn't know how to relate to the topic. And essentially I came to realize that that was just because they hadn't read what I had read. They had. I didn't learn about this in school, as I came to realize I never learned about it in school. And over the years I came to realize that mycology is incredibly significant, but most people just don't know about it. And when I was in my mid early 20s, I kind of made a conscious choice to essentially start to advocate for mycology and to help educate other people to show them what they've been missing out on, to sort of bring a spotlight onto this overlooked topic that as one of our youngest natural sciences, has just not been able to get a strong footing and get a good break, I guess, in the education system. And it's sort of been overlooked in so many ways. So. So that started when I was in my early 20s with a couple friends, kind of started this, this grassroots group we called Radical Mycology. Kind of a ragtag approach to saying mushrooms and fungi are really cool and here's all the ways that they are cool to you. And that hooked and sunk into a number of people, but it was sort of a few introductory topics is where it started. But as the years progressed and as I learned more and as I met more people and intentionally brought my knowledge of fungi to organizations and groups and demographics that I went into knowing that they probably knew very little about fungi, I started to learn how they would adapt this knowledge and new insights would come to me about. As I learned about different aspects of fungi, society and culture, et cetera, that this topic, mycology, applies to everything and sometimes again in really profound and unexplored ways. So it's been sort of an evolving dialogue that I've tried to contribute to, but also learning from over the years and actively trying to evolve through articulating and broadening horizons that have essentially been unexplored in human history. So that organization sort of helped get the word out. I like to think of Radical Mycology, which is still quite active as an advocacy organization and sort of a our culture creation around fungi appreciation. And that was so successful or our work there has been so effective that several years ago I wrote a book by the same name called Radical Mycology that basically puts all these big ideas on paper and these skills. Most of the book is a hands on and how to reference book. And then that did so well as a book that essentially I'm working to translate those offerings into even more in depth online courses, really going quite deep into fungal ecology, cultivation, what's known as micro remediation or applying fungi to mitigate pollution, natural medicine making, and many other aspects of all that fungi offer. Starting with online courses, as I say, but then also expanding in person offerings in Portland, Oregon where I'm based, and eventually abroad as well. So it's essentially the first mycology focused school really ever in the world. There are other online courses you might come across, short introductions to things, of course, and different universities offer varying degrees of mycology education. But nothing like this has ever really existed where it's very in depth really. Not only teaching what's known, but courses will be sculpted in a way that will enable and inspire, hopefully and empower the students to actively contribute to the growth of the science. One of the great things about mycology is that being so young and with so little known, there's many, many ways that the average person can actively contribute to its growth and come up with even, you know, simple applications, you know, again, even in the agricultural, regenerative agricultural fields especially, that have yet to be explored because we just need more hands on deck to put all these, these ideas to practice. So that's always been my greatest interest, is enabling that growth of the science, sort of again starting with an advocacy and now just getting personally better at educating and articulating what can be complex ideas for beginner into frameworks and approaches that are very relatable and contextualized.

I'm very excited that you are starting this school and I would encourage all of our listeners to do some more research. Look at the work that Peter is doing, look at the work that other people have done. Get the book, read the book. As we go through this conversation, I'm sure you're going to discover some of the reasons why it is so important for us to understand fungi better. So Peter, perhaps to begin, I'd love to ask you the question, particularly within the domain of regenerative agriculture and agricultural ecosystems in general, There is a growing awareness of the value of some types of symbiotic fungi, particularly mycorrhizal fungi. People are gaining an appreciation for trichoderma and perhaps a few other fungi, but by and large there hasn't really been any adoption or any in depth understanding of why fungi are important and how we can manage them. And so the question that I'd love to begin with is why are fungi important in agricultural ecosystems other than just mycorrhizal fungi?

Well, when we look at fungi in an ecological context, they are nature's greatest chemists. And on the one end, they're the grand disassemblers and decomposers, able to break down wood and seemingly almost anything humans create as well, from toxic chemicals to, you know, to varying degrees, even plastics, we're now finding. So they're great at breaking things down. And that of course, leads to soil building and overall soil health. But then as the mycorrhizae redistribute nutrients as well as part of their roles as chemists, and they actually solubilize nutrients out of the soil and feed them to plants and dose them out in a way that is not as wasteful, of course, as applying soluble liquid based fertilizers, as the other approach to feeding plants. And then even inside of plants, all plants are permeated. We believe, you know, essentially 100% of their tissues are from roots to leaf tip, with internal fungi that are known as endophytic fungi and are likely contributing to varying degrees. Big question marks loom here, but I would bet good money that they're influencing essentially the immune system of the plant, helping protect against invading fungi, pathogenic fungi, insect herbivory, perhaps to some degree, sort of stimulating the immune response in plants and just enabling to survive droughts and high temperatures. And this we do know in some instances to be true, and also even producing some of the medicinal compounds in plants, and the, perhaps some of the nutritional profiling of plants is influenced by the health and the chemical manipulations, if you will, that these internal fungi are offering. So they're doing so much to, to move nutrients in the world. And that's just a quick snapshot of all that they do. So, you know, so much of regenerative agriculture or life in general, we're concerned about our NPKs and all the other minerals and elements of life and making sure that they're distributed and moving around in natural systems. Fungi are key players in that on many, many fronts. And Just that awareness, I think is often overlooked. Again primarily just due to a lack of education, not because people don't care, it's just that we don't get told, or we don't learn early on, or don't learn in depth, even if we obtain higher education in environmental studies. Often fungi are just sort of overlooked or very poorly acknowledged. So with that sort of that blind spot being pointed out, we can reposition our paradigms a bit by considering fungi from a new light. You know, in my mind, which is a bit biased, I'm always thinking about fungi first in any ecological context and also any human designed context. You know, how do fungi influence the system? How could they be brought in to influence the system? What of the many different ecological functions they perform could be incorporated to support and enhance what I'm already working on or designing to make the system more holistic, more closed loop. You know, fungi are the loop closers in especially nutrient cycling and through their decomposition roles as just powerhouse disassemblers. And I mean, just on that front alone, they could be substantially beneficial in topsoil building and the breakdown of almost any woody debris or agricultural residue. That isn't really good fodder, maybe isn't even possible to be fed to animals as is. But you can grow decomposing fungi whether or not they produce mushrooms, of course, edible mushrooms, of course, that's a benefit as well. And then they break down the material and then very likely, or depending on the species of mushroom, the leftover of that fungal fermentation of that agricultural waste actually has become a viable fodder for an animal. And it's protein infused with the fungal tissue. And the fungus might have broken down, say tannins if they were in the material that the animal couldn't tolerate before that. And that's just one example of how we can, by incorporating the skill set of cultivating fungi and awareness and appreciation and bringing that skill set into again, a holistic farm or just nutrient management, resource management strategy. Fungi can close a pretty big gap that may be existing. And then of course, it's just going to depend on a given situation, a given crop or farmland or design, how fungi may fit in to a significant degree or to a minor degree, the two sort of broad groups you mentioned, the Trichoderma molds, have been well studied for decades and are quite appreciated overseas, especially say in India. They're much more commonly applied to root systems to protect against pathogens or to compost piles to speed up the breakdown. But it just hasn't gotten over here as quick. But we're, we're starting to catch up in the west, generally speaking, Asian cultures and, you know, down in Southeast Asia and things as well, appreciation and awareness of, of mushrooms especially, but other fungi is much more ingrained in the culture. And, you know, moldy foods or certain moldy foods that are central to the cuisine of, say, China and Japan, you know, miso and soy sauce, these are products of a mold, essentially. The culture relationship is just so different, let alone the mushroom consumption in the west. We have an aversion to fungi that, you know, dates back 100, 200 years and is a bit outdated nowadays, but still looms and has kept us distanced. And as, as awareness grows, as education spreads and excitement around all that fungi seem to offer becomes more available, then we're going to start to have that critical mass and that sea change of awareness. And in my hope, really one day that consideration of fungi first will play into so much of our ecological and environmental education. And as practitioners are planning, I really do feel strongly that fungi are such critical keystone components of any ecosystem that they need to be much more central to our paradigms. That's not to dismiss the bacterial players and everything else, of course. It's just we can't overlook one of the biggest branches on the tree of life.

I asked you why fungi other than mycorrhizae and trichoderma are also important, and you, My goodness. The key pieces that you mentioned, bioremediation, nutrient transport, immune reactions, drought stress, moisture use, efficiency, nutrient transportation, those are. I feel like we could speak about each one of those topics in and of itself for quite an extended period. So I know that one of the major interests that growers have today, we're experiencing, we just have vagaries of the weather. We don't have a climate anymore. A major concern for many growers is developing more drought resilient crops and being able to survive drought stress and be more moisture efficient. Could you expand for just a little bit on how fungi can help do that work better?

Well, the easier answers are the more straightforward and familiar ones is building lots of good topsoil that can hold more water, good structure, good humus content, and fungi play into that. As I've sort of mentioned, one of the categories of mycorrhizal fungi, there are seven categories we recognize, and one of those categories are the more commonly appreciated agricultural mycorrhizae. And these are known as arbuscular mycorrhizae. And they produce a protein called glomalin that takes essentially the microaggregates of soil particles that bacteria essentially produce through their biofilm. And they aggregate those smaller bits into larger aggregates. And that's really what makes the true tilth and a larger structured porosity of good soil with good drainage, but also good water holding capacity as well. It's actually a significant contributor to calcium sinking is not only that compound, which is very stable and high in carbon itself, but also the fungal tissue is very high in carbon and is essentially the primary translator of atmospheric CO2 via the plant. But actually sinking it to the soil is primarily done with fungal mycelium and the exudates they release. So that's sort of a tangential aspect maybe of climate variations is the CO2 sinking. But as far as tolerating drought and mitigating those impacts, helping the plant's root system be more resilient in various ways, and also just holding more nutrients, more water through good soil, these micro will help certainly in that capacity. And then the decomposers, as I've said, will just contribute to your other composting processes to just speed up soil building. You know, shading and all this can't really be done by, by fungi. So they're just contributing to the growth of higher canopies to try to mitigate heat and things. But the other aspects of their building soil is reducing erosion through the stabilizing they perform not only with the glues, but also the tissue itself. This network of fungal tissue in the soil will help hold it together and produce reduce rather the erosion that can lead to desertification caused by high heat. And so those are sort of the more straightforward approaches. You know, ultimately they are the grand solution for this really major global issue, of course, but they can help again alleviate some of the stress on the plant by supporting essentially the plant's own immune system. The fungi mentioned a couple minutes ago that have been shown to reduce stress and heat and drought tolerance from inside of the plant. Those have been isolated from plants found in say, thermal pools near volcanically active areas. Really hot water that the plant shouldn't be able to tolerate. Yet this fungus enables it to tolerate is one example. And they've isolated those fungi, identified them from within the plant, and there is some research looking into say, applying those fungi to other plants to try to confirm this drought tolerance and heat tolerance. My concern there, always as a word of caution, is just that we don't know the long term effects of that. And that could actually potentially have a negative impact on the other natural or native internal fungi in that new host plant. And there could be unforeseen ecological effects and effects on the plant's overall health by sort of shifting this internal fungal population to try to bring about drought resistance, if that makes sense. So it's a little bit of, you know, going beyond our field of awareness and sort of shooting blindly. So rather than taking that approach, which is not something I advocate, it's more about trying to build more resilient crops if possible, and then just providing what they need to deal with the heat and general of shade and water.

You've mentioned a couple of pieces which I think are important to follow up on a bit. One of them being the humification process. Carbon sequestration, carbon sinking. There's getting to be a much better understanding that the really important work of carbon sequestration happens when you have plants that are photosynthesizing really well and transmitting an abundant quantity of sugars out through the root systems as root exudates. And I think from that point, once we have root exudates, that's where the conversation starts becoming really muddy about different roles of fungi versus bacteria, etc. And there's a substantial lack of clarity around the role of fungi in producing stable humic substances and stable soil aggregates. So what is the value and the importance of fungi in. And I know you mentioned this and already described it to some degree, but what is the function of fungi relative to bacteria? And how can we improve the function of fungal populations in our agricultural soils?

Well, it's certainly an ecology down there, so everything is sort of working together. One good example of a strong fungal bacterial relationship plant producers might be interested in is the exchange between rhizobia nitrogen fixing bacteria and the arbuscular mycorrhizae that I was just talking about. So there's actually in natural systems, it's a three way exchange. And we might try to bring in rhizobia or even inoculate our leguminous plants with them. But we would also benefit to bring in these AM fungi. They work synergistically where the fungi are bringing in elements that the plant can then use to then feed the rhizobia. So the enzymes that fix nitrogen are produced and active and then it feeds back to the plant, which then feeds back to the fungus that's attached to the plant. So the three of them work together. The mycelium travels as a network. For folks that aren't familiar, these fungi clamp onto plant roots and extend into the soil, essentially increasing the surface area of the plant's own root system. Ten to a thousand fold. The fungal tissue is much thinner in diameter and can travel faster and can do a lot of chemistry, essentially that the plant never evolved to do. The the exudates they release is primarily to attract fungi and bacteria helpers, both for nutrient provision and also for defense that especially the fungi provide. So the plant is providing these exudates? Yes, but that goes on to feed the other microbes that actually do much of the work in the soil, but then also a lot to sink it, especially via the fungi, as I mentioned, with their tissue and their own exudates. We need all these players together in a long term soil succession. Soils, of course, become more fungal dominant with a complex of especially ectomycorrhizal mushrooms that come typically with more tree crops in an established forest. In an agricultural setting, you know, you're not really going to be able to accomplish that as much. You're more trying to bring in whichever mycorrhizae are known to associate with whatever plants you're working with. If it's annuals or perennial shrubs or something, it's probably going to be more the arbusca mycorrhizae. These are non mushroom forming fungi, as opposed to what I just mentioned, the ectomycorrhizae. These are the mushroom formers, mushroom and truffle formers in our forests. Those are much more difficult to establish in an orchard, as probably orchardists who've looked into trying to grow, say, chanterelles might know. But there are these other fungi we can bring in and the dynamics between the different communities, you know, in my opinion, also isn't as well studied as it could be. Most of the emphasis has gone towards looking at the bacterial players, noting when certain types of fungi might indicate problems or just many are lumped together essentially as bad fungi. And some writings you'll read. But the honest truth is that our understanding of soil fungi is very cursory. We've identified certain types of mycorrhizae that are beneficial and of the many that are out there, there's about 300. Especially these ectomycorrhizae, only a couple dozen are really appreciated from a cultivation standpoint, primarily because they establish well through our human endeavors. Many are won't establish, won't regenerate from spore. We don't know why yet. So there's only a handful that we commonly find in inoculum products because they're more guaranteed to work. And even among them, certain species have been highlighted more. But that's just a small, small piece of all the fungi that are out there, there's many types of molds and yeast and other types of fungi called chytrids, say, that are in soils. And though we can name many of them, at this point, we know very little about their ecological role other than, say, they're a decomposer, they eat keratin, they eat chitin, they eat certain things, they eat pollen. But how does that really ripple out and connect to everything? And what's a good design system that brings all the pieces together? Thanks to fungi? I mean, we're far from having a clear plan for that. What I gravitate towards more and appreciate more is the sort of Korean natural farming approach. Bringing in, they say, indigenous microorganisms, but it's really like indigenous molds, essentially, indigenous fungi, where you go to a relatively healthy forest system, bring some rice, some partially cooked rice, let it sit out for several days or weeks, and mold will just naturally grow on it from the surrounding airflow. And you bring back that moldy rice and essentially mix it into your soil through a series of dilutions. And the thought is you're just trying to bring back fungal diversity. You could, if you were a mycologist, look under scope and try to figure out which ones you're actually bringing in. But it's a bit more, you know, just letting nature take its course and just trying to bring back fungal diversity in general. Because through all of our human endeavors and disturbance of soil on so many fronts, it's very likely, I mean, it's. It's certain that we've lost innumerable fungi, whether they're now extinct through human activity in certain parts of the world, perhaps, or just their population. And certainly diversity is going to be significantly repressed. And even some of the best, you know, organic farms or things, or even no till farms, where they try to not disturb the soil microbes, if those fungi are absent, it's going to take a very long time for them to come back. So you're trying to speed that up. Trying to bring back that natural diversity, say, through the Korean natural farming method, is one approach with the thought, with the hope that it will all sort of balance itself out in the long run. You know, some people like that, some people don't, because it's not as precise. But the reality of where our knowledge is with soil fungi and the right approaches is sort of there at this moment. Again, as I said earlier, we need more hands on deck, just trying different approaches, especially in this front, to your.

Point that we don't really understand the role and know a lot about what these different fungal populations are doing. We had an experience a couple of years ago working with mycorrhizal fungi where we're working with a spinach crop of soils that are very saline soils, very high sodium content, and we're adding bacterial inoculants in an effort to sequester some of the sodium and take it out of the system, which historically in other operations has been very successful. And on this farm we're not getting the results that we are used to observing. So we added a mycorrhizal fungi inoculant and voila, we get this tremendous sodium sequestration response. Even though spinach is supposedly not a mycorrhizal symbiotic crop, yet we got a very strong soil remediation effect of the high concentrations of sodium. So I think that's just one, one little example of something that we observed and experienced that was counter to what we, we think we may know about these organisms.

Yeah, I mean, that's all those types of examples. And you know, taking a chance is really where it's at with especially applied mycology. It's a bit like the Wild west where there's just a lot of unexplored terrain. And it's one of those things too, where unfortunately, maybe some things have been done, say in Japan or in China, where much more research has gone into some of these applications, but perhaps the papers haven't been translated into English or they're just of course, hard to access. There is a lot of good knowledge out there with mycological fungi related experiments that have been done in many different capacities, but they're sort of buried, if you will, in the literature. And again, many are not translated. So in the western world, in the English speaking world, and also just in a different sort of cultural context, I guess, and maybe different approach than maybe is happening in other parts of the world. Taking what is known and as you say, both trying new things, trying things that maybe aren't even supposed to work, or even just taking what's supposed to work and then seeing how it really plays out in your soil and your climate, building up this local awareness. I mean, just as we have with many different plant crops and different regional farming associations, where you can get that local knowledge of how things have played out over the centuries or decades. We don't have that with fungi. I mean, we're just, we have to, we have to start somewhere. Of course, trying with the best starting point, but also not being afraid to branch out. I mean, I've done many things personally with mushroom cultivation, so more just a standard indoor approach, I guess, to growing mushrooms. But even in that arena there's so much room for innovation still. And I've intentionally done many things that weren't supposed to work and got them to work. And my interest nowadays is more going into these broader applications, these larger scale ecological approaches to working with fungi, both for sort of human endeavors, human labors, but also for just general environmental restoration on many fronts. And there we have very few anecdotes. The field is wide open, which is exciting, but also a bit intimidating, depending on how you look at it. But yeah, I mean, that anecdote is something I'll hold on to for sure and probably share it in the future.

There is a growing desire and a growing conversation, particularly in the domain of regenerative agriculture, to develop what are termed disease suppressive soils, soils which actively antagonize the development of pathogenic communities. There's two questions that are tied to disease suppression. One of them is how can we develop fungal communities that will contribute to disease suppression? And secondly, there seems to be an inverse relationship between disease suppressive soils and soils that have had a historical accumulation of pesticide applications. So there's kind of two parts to that ecosystem. One is we need to bioremediate some of the toxin applications and also hopefully help to shift the fungal population in that soil profile to develop a much more disease suppressive soil. How can growers manage fungi and use fungi to achieve some of those benefits?

Yeah, it sounds like a 1, 2 fungal punch, if you will, where the problem perhaps is the severe disturbance of the soil through tillage, again, the loss of microbial diversity, especially fungal diversity, through all that's been done to stress the soil along with the chemical application. And if that is still suppressing fungi from returning, they're not able to do essentially what I see all fungi do, broadly speaking, which is essentially balance the ecosystem and hear the ecosystem of the soil. You maybe don't have many important players represented. And so what we consider pathogenic organisms predominate things that are able to tolerate and they're not being suppressed or sort of checked and balanced by control mechanisms like fungi. So the remediation and the breakdown of chemical pollutants in soil is one of the applications of fungal remediation or micro remediation that is a bit more of a lower hanging fruit than some of the other applications. There's a number of ways fungi can deal with pollutants in the soil and in water systems, but some Are, though interesting, quite inaccessible to even advanced practitioners without some heavy duty equipment or expensive equipment. But to deal with what you're describing is actually a bit approachable. In essence, if the chemical contaminant is known, there are a series of steps a cultivator practitioner can go through to determine which fungus. Often it's a mushroom, but can be a mold that is tolerant of that compound and perhaps quite capable of breaking it down and degrading it essentially as a food source. And there's even more advanced methods that can be done to what we say, train or acclimate the fungus to eat that and tolerate that compound. So you can develop an organism that is targeted to this contaminated, this pollutant in your soil system. Once that's been done, the mycelium can be bulked up into large, large quantities and then mass applied into the soil. This might be one of those instances where the soil needs to be excavated to really infuse the mycelium throughout it and also to provide good airflow so it can breathe while it does its work of growing through that pollution and breaking it down, hopefully to, you know, tolerable levels or below sort of effective levels. Once that's done, then it gets put back into place, and then now the soil perhaps has been heavily disturbed through even additional excavation. So the biology needs to be brought up real quick through these different mycorrhizal and other fungal inoculums, other microbial inoculums, compost and compost tea. I mean, I'm a fan of all of it, using sort of the best approach that the grower has available to provide. You know, the remediation of chemically polluted soil is actually an approach that could be done by a local grower or even a really dedicated farmer who wants to learn these skills. It does take time, is the drawback. The whole time you're sort of waiting for months, not sure if it's really going to work. So there's that, that sort of anxiety might come with it. And then there's some suggested cost, additional cost of testing, and perhaps doing a number of tests to ensure that it's really breaking down before, during and after the experiment runs. And those tests add up. So those are some of the barriers. But if a given farmer or landowner wants to take that approach to really deal with their acreage, and if it goes well, it might very well be successful within several months. You know, there's a lot of variables, but it's not impossible. And then, then the soil is essentially cleaned of this major Prohibitor of beneficial life, really building out the quality of the soil that's desired. And then sort of the more familiar approaches can be attempted after that.

Peter, there is so much that we don't know about the types of fungi that we might desire. You described the Asian approach of just adapting to what is present in the local environment. How would implementing this process that you're describing look like on scale? Is it practical to apply on a larger scale, on a scale of a thousand acres or more? And if so, what would it look like? Can you kind of walk us through the process a little bit, just on a very high level?

It is scalable. You can start with the harder ones and maybe go to the easier one. So it ends on a. On a good note, if you will, probably the less accessible approach would be trying to chemically or remediate chemically polluted soils that span, you know, acres or even hectares, however large, because you're essentially trying to collect that soil, gather it and inoculate it. Roughly 20 to 30% of its entire volume should be this fungal inoculum. This mushroom usually is what's often used in these instances to grow that out, whether on site or to commission a local grower or another grower somewhere in the country to produce that. I mean, it really adds up both with the volume of that inoculum to bring in the mixing it in, the waiting, and then also even providing shade so that the material doesn't grow out, or at least keeping it moist. The fungus needs to stay moist while it grows. So it is scalable, but it's just quite a large endeavor. It might be more feasible, manageable to do it, you know, one acre at a time, one half acre at a time. But if you have an incredibly large operation that might not play out with a timeline. So there's that now. So that's the biggest challenge perhaps is really cleaning up large contaminated areas, generally just bringing in fungal inoculum. I mean, that can be done many number of ways, as probably is familiar to a number of the listeners, where a lot of these products that you can either buy or even create yourself are primarily just fungal spores of various types or little fragments of their tissue that are heavily diluted in a carrier, whether that's say, clay or, or any other sort of soil mix. I mean, if you're already, say top dressing or you can mix it into your compost if you're going to be laying that in, or top dressing again on top of your crop for the year, if you have a mixer, a large soil Mixer or something like that or whatever your tractor or machinery that that seeds the field, etc. These inoculants can be mixed in and diluted. You only need in theory, a couple active spores to really get the job started. So we work in higher numbers to hedge our bets that by putting out a lot of spores we'll get something to take. But at the end of the day, one single, say mushroom or one grow container of arbuscular mycorrhizae might be producing hundreds or more likely thousands, if not tens of thousands, depending on the the grow size of this, the spores of these fungi that you really don't need very many of to start the establishment of a network throughout your whole whole field. So it is doable. Even with the Korean approach that I mentioned, where you're gathering sort of moldy rice, it does go through a series of dilutions and the final product is heavily diluted. I don't have the numbers right off the top of my head, but a relatively small amount of the material can be extensively spread throughout whole orchards. That is commonly done in Asia and also in say Hawaii where these practices have actually become quite popular. So it's not unfeasible, especially with these micro fungi as we call them, as opposed to the macro fungi, the mushrooms, which can take quite a bit more to really grow en masse.

Peter, if a grower were to want to learn more about how to implement these practices and these ideas, obviously there's your own book Radical Mycology and the courses that you're developing, which I would highly recommend. Are there any other resources or any other books that you would point people to that they should look to as an additional resource for more information and to learn how to implement and apply these practices, practices and ideas.

Well, the Korean natural farming approach, perhaps one of the easiest approaches to doing some of what I've described because you're essentially just putting moldy rice into a nearby woodlot forest and letting it get moldy. The go to book on that most people point towards is called jdam. So J A D A M Organic Farming by Master Cho and that goes through many aspects of Korean natural farming, but also gets into these approaches, the arbuscular mycorrhizae. Now you can buy all kinds of products as I've sort of mentioned, as you mentioned, but there are techniques to grow on site and farm scale amounts of arbuscular mycorrhizal inoculum. In short, the the methodology was developed by the Rodale Institute through seven year study and is available online through Their website, I synthesize it in my book. The book Mycorrhizal Planet by Michael Phillips also discusses it and sort of synthesizes it. But it all points back to the Rodale Institute that did the actual work. And in essence you take mycorrhizal spores, whether from a commercial product or actually just from the topsoil of a nearby forest that's been left undisturbed for several years and there should be mycorrhizal spores there. Arbuscular mycorrhizal spores. You use those to inoculate some grass or allium starts or seeds rather in a low nutrient medium, the plant grows, the roots are starved and they will accept the fungus as a partner to help feed it. And then you grow out the plant continuously under low nutrient conditions. And over a series of months, once the plant is big enough and the fungus network is established in the grow medium, the fungus will naturally start to produce spores. And then you can harvest the spores and even the mycelium from that soil and the following season dilute it into your compost or your top dressing soil or what have you as a way to inoculate. And this has been designed intentionally by Rodale for farm scale approach. So that's a great resource. Thanks to them for the years of researching that. The remediation aspect is quite a bit more technical, quite a few steps as I've noted and of course the details are even finer once you get into it. I would say that my book is one that goes sort of the clearest into detailing those methodologies, really explaining the theory and the practices and principles. There are quite a number of other micro remediation focused textbooks and technical literature that's out there. But it's not very accessible and it's not written with this agricultural context really in mind. It's more speaking from an objective scientific standpoint. But it will help explain some of the theory. The actual application and the how to is is detailed in my book in a way that I have yet to see produced elsewhere. It's again, as a burgeoning field, there really is not a lot of literature just on mycology in general. You know, even just good books for the layperson on any of these aspects. There's very few out there. It's one of the reasons I wrote my book is to try to synthesize all these great ideas that are otherwise hard to find. But yeah, those are some resources, good resources.

Thank you, Peter. We've talked about a lot of different topics. We've covered a lot of territory Relatively quickly. What is the question that you wish I would have asked? What is something that we haven't yet spoken about that you believe is very important?

Um, it's a great question. I mean, the thing that I always think about and am constantly trying to challenge myself to answer is how to best spread this knowledge and awareness around the world quickly as possible. And that's kind of always been the emphasis of my work. And I'm just constantly trying to evolve that or elaborate on better and better ways to do that. And in this context, it's hard for me to know the best approach, really, because people come at their crop production and their awareness and appreciation of fungi from so many different angles. To be able to give the right context can be a bit of a challenge, but at the same time, the ability to just communicate it for any of the listeners, I guess I'm saying that, have started to get a sense that there is something to this topic, as I've tried to emphasize, hopefully they take that deeper into their own knowledge and as I teach all my students or say to them, or encourage them to consider, is that thereafter they have been essentially knighted a fungal ambassador. And to whatever capacity makes sense and to whatever social contexts allow to not be afraid to share your newfound interest and knowledge around. This is still relatively inaccessible or more obscure topic. And, you know, there's only so much I, as one person can do to spread the word. It's much more powerful when it becomes sort of a groundswell and essentially a grassroots effort to bring fungi more to the fore and to not be afraid to try new things and all that we've touched on. I think that that's where it's going to be the best approach that includes educating children, attempting all types of methods to bring into educational sectors at every level of education and with every approach under the sun, from theater to stand up comedy, to going to your local farmers association and seeking out grant funding for experimental approaches on your own farm. All these things in the long run will pool together in probably ways we can't quite imagine to create in time a greater appreciation and literacy around fungi in the west that we have yet to fully embrace. And that's when things will get interesting. So I just encourage the listener to again, not be afraid to dive in, start looking into any of these topics. And as with many people, perhaps once you start to dive in, you'll just keep diving deeper and, and maybe never let it go.

Wonderful. Peter, thank you very much for sharing your thoughts and your knowledge. We really appreciate the new information that you've been able to share with our audience. So thank you very much for being here, and we look forward to having more conversations with you in the future.

Yeah, it's been a absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Hi, this is Robin. This podcast was brought to you by a great company that I work for, AEA Advancing Eco Agriculture, the leader in regenerative agriculture since 2006. At AEA, we believe in challenging the status quo to find more profitable and regenerative ways to grow crops. We believe that healthy plants are resistant to pests and disease, and that to grow healthy plants, we must first think differently. About agriculture, about empowering life instead of suppressing life, about regeneration versus degeneration. To achieve this, we formulate and sell products that help growers produce higher quality yield and make more money with less risk. Thank you for listening.