Oyster Mushrooms decontaminating diesel - Paul Stamets
Description
Vocal Characteristics
Language
EnglishVoice Age
Young Adult (18-35)Accents
British (General)Transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
At Bellingham University, a remediation experiment was conducted where four powers of soil were contaminated with diesel with a concentration of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons of 10,000 parts per million. One pile was then treated with enzymes. One was treated with bacteria and the other was treated with oyster mushroom mycelium and one was untreated as a control. The piles were left covered and after six weeks three of the piles showed no improvement. While the pile treated with the mycelium from the oyster mushroom was covered in hundreds of pounds of healthy mushrooms. The mycelium of oyster mushrooms produces enzymes that break hydrocarbon bonds, which are the bonds that bind hydrocarbons together. The enzymes remanufactured with the hydrocarbons into carbohydrates. The mushrooms in this experiment were healthy because they have attained a lot of nutrition by transforming toxic petroleum contaminants into useful mushroom food. Additionally, the healthy mushrooms sport related, which attracted insects, which attracted birds, which brought seeds and the mushroom power became an oasis of diverse life. Upon testing the ph in the soil pile had gone from 10,000 parts per million to less than 200 parts per million in 16 weeks suitable for landscaping use along highways