Mushroom for reflection
Delegates from Teagasc recently attended the International Society of Mushroom Science congress for a look at the ever-growing world of mushroom research.
The International Society of Mushroom Science (ISMS) congress takes place every four years and is an important event in the mushroom research calendar. This February, it celebrated its 20th anniversary and was held jointly with the North American Mushroom Conference (NAMC) in Nevada, USA. The combined events hosted over 575 delegates from 23 countries around the world. Among those attending on behalf of Teagasc were Research Officer Eoghan Corbett and Senior Research Officer Helen Grogan, both of Teagasc Ashtown’s Horticultural Development Department.
Teagasc attendees at the ISMS Congress: (L-R) Gabrielle Young, Eoghan Corbett, Joy Clarke, Helen Grogan, Lóránt Hatvani and Andrea Uccello
Space to grow
The breadth of innovative mushroom research presented at the congress was impressive, with several keynote speakers giving excellent presentations on a variety of potential applications, such as harvesting, disease control, and aeronautics. Applications for consumer goods were also examined, explains Eoghan.
“Gavin McIntyre of Ecovative gave a fascinating presentation about using mycelium technology to produce novel materials such as fungal leather and mushroom bacon, both of which we were able to sample during the conference.” Such products can be made by growing sheets of ‘air mycelium’ using current mushroom growing systems, presenting growers with a potential future avenue for diversifying.
Perhaps the most far-reaching research presented was by NASA astrobiologist Lynn Rothschild, examining how humans could live and work on Mars, without having to transport materials by spacecraft.
“She presented a fascinating outline of a model system of ‘mycotecture’ that could be used to construct a building using an inflated 3D structure along with algal and fungal cultures, none of which would take up much room on a spacecraft,” explains Helen.
“The algae would make carbohydrates and oxygen from the sun and water on Mars and the fungi could then use the algal biomass to grow and produce a solid mass within an inflated 3-D structure. It was also lovely to see Eoin O’Connor, a former Walsh Scholar Gold Medal winner, deliver one of the keynote addresses. “Now part of the research team at Pennsylvania State University, he’s using metaproteomics to gain an understanding of how changes in the microbial communities within the casing layer relate to various stages of mushroom cropping.”
Mushroom ‘bacon’ made from processed mushroom mycelium
Just in casing
Teagasc has a wide mushroom research portfolio, and – given the importance of the ISMS congress – they had six speakers attending, covering topics of peat-alternatives for mushroom casing, post-harvest mushroom quality, robotics for mushroom harvesting and novel mushroom disease control.
Peat-replacement was a topical issue at the conference. The day before the congress, The Australian Mushroom Growers Association hosted a seminar, ‘The Future of Mushroom Casing – A Review’, based on a report prepared by Helen and Eoghan in conjunction with casing expert Ralph Noble of Microbiotech. They gave a series of presentations outlining the global importance of peatlands, the legislation governing its extraction and sharing their results and experience when using peat-alternatives in their experimental work.
Helen explains, “Our key findings were that peat extraction is under severe pressure in Europe. Peatlands store a very high proportion of global soil-organic-carbon (30%) relative to the small global surface area they cover (3%), which makes restoring peatlands a very effective way of reducing carbon emissions.”
While peat extraction for horticulture is likely to continue on existing licensed sites within Europe in the short to medium term, there is increasing pressure across the board to stop extraction activities and restore degraded peatlands, in the interests of trying to reduce carbon emissions and mitigate against the negative consequences of climate change.
Addressing this challenge, Eoghan and Walsh Scholar Gabrielle Young outlined the results of their work. Gabrielle’s systematised review of non-peat casing alternatives across the available peer-reviewed literature demonstrated that spent mushroom substrate was a good candidate for an alternative to peat.
Eoghan drew lots of interest outlining the results of recent trial work done as part of the DAFM-funded ‘Beyond Peat’ project. He demonstrated how a novel application of soil sensors could be used to monitor the behaviour of water in mushroom casing and how differences in hydrological behaviour observed between peat and various wood-based casing blends impact crop yield and quality.
A session on ‘Innovations and Automation in (mushroom) Harvesting’ saw five commercial companies outlining the status of their offerings in the robotics space – as well as the challenges still facing the launch of a fully operational system for the robotic harvesting of mushrooms.
“These technologies are tasked with distinguishing between good and poor quality mushrooms, and lots has changed since a colour quality reference was established in the early 1990s,” explains Helen.
Considering improved cultivation management practices and mushroom strains, Teagasc researcher Andrea Uccello, working on EU project ‘SoftGrip’, proposed a new colour reference to be used in the assessment of mushroom quality and whiteness, which can be used to characterise mushroom colour and quality in robotic vision systems.
A mushroom ‘leather’ shoe made using foam-like aerial mycelium
Tracing a path-ogen
Pests and disease can cause significant and costly losses in mushroom production and there is a drive to reduce the use of chemical intervention by recruiting the help of biological agents in combatting common crop diseases. Walsh Scholar Joy Clarke presented her results comparing the efficacy of biological and chemical treatments on controlling cobweb and dry bubble disease.
Teagasc-EU post-doctoral fellow Lóránt Hatvani also delivered a fascinating talk on how some dry bubble pathogens harbour their own specific viruses. These can make them less virulent and therefore less effective as a button mushroom pathogen. Selected viruses could potentially be useful as biocontrol agents in the fight against mushroom dry bubble disease.
“It can’t be understated just how important events like this are for participants, especially for early-career scientists,” concludes Helen. “Having your research recognised by peers provides a great sense of validation, affirming the relevance and significance of one’s work.” Equally valuable is the opportunity to interact with researchers and industry innovators, establishing what could be fruitful collaborative partnerships into the future.
“It’s fair to say that everyone who attended the congress would have encountered something to spark their interest and inspire new ideas.”
Contributors
Eoghan Corbett, Research Officer, Horticultural Development Department, Teagasc Ashtown. eoghan.corbett@teagasc.ie
Helen Grogan, Senior Research Officer, Horticultural Development Department, Teagasc Ashtown.
This article was first published in TResearch, read more from TResearch here