07 Jan Bio-remediation with Compost & Fungus

Bio-remediation with Compost & Fungus

by Emily Fitzgerald, Education Coordinator of Microbial Earth

 We believe that we can heal the land in our own backyards with the help of Microbes and fungi.  In the last newsletter we overviewed the benefits of Mycorrhizae and the necessity of microbes.  The broader environmental community is talking about the potential of microbes and fungi to clean up the biggest oil spill ever.  Recently an article was published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Research Service, where they experimented with using compost to remove three different types of commonly spilled hydrocarbons, including motor oil, diesel and gasoline.  Research shows that compost has the ability to remove oil from water and thus break down the hydrocarbons.  Bioremediation takes far less time with compost than under natural conditions due to the increase in diversity and population of Microbes in compost.

In a typical fertile soil there are about 26 million/gram of bacteria and in compost the bacterial population is close to 417 million/gram.   Fungi populations are also generally five times higher in dry compost versus dry soil.  It is know that microbial activity can be up to forty times greater in compost than in soil ecosystems.  Scientist are now isolating microbes from healthy compost piles and inoculating bioremediation sites.  Studies primarily done by one of the pioneers of mycoremediation, Paul Stamets show that fungi also have an amazing ability to cleanup toxic spills. Oyster mushrooms have been particularly useful in converting environmental toxins.  This”decomposer” class of mushrooms is extremely effective at breaking down industrial pollutants.  The thready branching roots of mushrooms are called mycelium.  Many scientists, companies and researchers are using mycelium to decontaminate soil.