Fungal fascination: Stephen Hobbs and the Ganoderma lucidum. Photo by Bronwyn Miller
Many urban farmers face the problem of lack of space to grow crops, but mushroom cultivation is possible even in the corner of an apartment, and a “mushroom boom” is underway.
During the coronavirus lockdown, many people began researching how to grow mushrooms at home to use in their cooking. The Netflix documentary Fantastic Fungi, a TED Talk by renowned mycologist and fungus activist Paul Stamets, and medical research into the hallucinogenic drug psilocybin, found in certain types of mushrooms, have also sparked a lot of interest.
Mushrooms have nutritional and health benefits and are environmentally friendly to cultivate, growing on straw, logs, sawdust and even coffee grounds.
Home growers feel good about reducing their environmental impact by cutting down on the food miles associated with store-bought produce and packaging.
Growing food at home has psychological benefits: it reduces stress and improves mood and mindfulness. Growing mushrooms can also be a social activity, as people exchange knowledge and experiences on cultivation techniques. Many fungi, such as Yamabushitake, are used as supplements and have medicinal properties when used in a holistic approach.
The mycelium-based material that fungi produce as they grow, or “fungal material,” can be used for a variety of purposes, such as making leather and insulation. Stamets explains how fungi could be used to recycle oil spills and as an environmentally friendly pesticide.
Specialty mushroom cultivation is a market that is expanding as fast as fungi themselves. Commercially, China is the world's largest producer, where mushrooms have long been a part of the daily diet. China already produces about 50 million tons of mushrooms and truffles annually on factory farms, and the economic value of the global mushroom market is expected to rise from $63 billion in 2022 to more than $90 billion by 2028, according to research firm Imarc Group.
Stephen Hobbs
Multimedia artist Stephen Hobbs was living in rural Ireland during the COVID-19 pandemic and became fascinated with fungi while trying to identify them on woodland walks with his family.
“Having spent most of my professional life in Johannesburg, the Mycelium Network's sense of purpose provided a powerful metaphysical lens through which to explore the notion of social cohesion, particularly in the context of the mental health impacts of social isolation during months of lockdown,” Hobbs says.
“Through Trinity Sessions, the artist collective and public art consultancy that I have co-directed since 2001, we used the workshop space of the Orchard Project in Orange Grove to explore a Green Projects program centered around art and nature. In this program, we worked with a range of partners to deliver a range of interactive workshops utilising principles of play and art therapy linked to permaculture practices, fungus cultivation and more.”
As part of its Green Projects program, Afrifungi opened a fungus lab within its Orchard Workshop, and the lab's exposure to cultivation and farming methods has inspired “a whole new trajectory” in Hobbs' art. He has incorporated mycelium into several of his exhibitions to generate new interpretations of the inherent nature of Johannesburg's destruction and rebuilding.
AfriFungi
The internet is full of information about how to garden, but there's also a lot of misinformation, so Afrifungi decided to “unravel the mystery.”
Through training workshops, Afrifungi’s three-man staff equip beginners and enthusiasts in mushroom cultivation with the knowledge they need to become successful professional mushroom growers.
They also grow mycelium, which is difficult to do on your own, and customize solutions for mycelium. Their first big challenge was deciding which part of the fungus cultivation process to focus on, since the field is so vast.
“The focus is on oysters and shiitake mushrooms because they are the easiest to grow. Oysters grow in a variety of substrates. Shiitake mushrooms grow on logs and are definitely the tastiest. Oysters come in a variety of colors and you'll never get tired of growing them for years,” says Melinda Danette.
Matthew Kuhlemans describes the typical process trainees follow: “Out of curiosity, we start with a cultivation workshop on early-harvesting oyster mushrooms. Then we learn how to pasteurize straw by boiling it or soaking it in a hydrated lime solution. We pack the straw into prepared buckets and add the grains colonized by the fungus, called spawn beds. We then do a 'lasagna' process of adding more straw, spawn beds, etc. We already have a bucket with holes taped up. We then place it in a dark place with a stable room temperature and humidity. We then spray the outside of the bucket to maintain humidity.”
“We continued to observe and when the mushrooms started to stick into our bodies with pins, [fruiting]”Or you can take the shiitake logs home and grow them in your garden in a suitable microclimate.”
Are mushrooms easy to grow? The answer is yes and no. Mushrooms may not need much light, but they do need a stable environment. Hobbs says it's “easier to grow mushrooms than spinach,” but adds that watching the mushrooms sprout is more important than knowing the theory. It's a state of mind, a “magical exchange” that requires highly focused intention.
“It's a return of faith. You have to let go of logic,” says Sven Mårgaard. “The first time you hit a pin, you get really excited. A lot of students come for the novelty, but then they lose faith because they don't get consistent results.”
City Ruins
Clayton Viljoen, CEO of The Urban Ruins, an early childhood development centre in Boksburg that serves meals grown in its garden to up to 600 local children each week, said the centre had invested in mushroom cultivation to boost income for the non-profit organisation.
After receiving funding from donors and carrying out research, they decided to invest in oyster mushroom cultivation in 2023. Staff were trained in Afrifungi and set up six insulated, temperature-controlled wooden huts: one is a “dark room” for sowing seeds and the rest will be used for fruiting.
The process is highly technical, he says, and hygiene is paramount. “The cultivation process itself is simple, but it easily spoils. As Afrifangi taught me, we use lime-washed buckets filled with straw to grow the seed culture.”
They chose to grow mushrooms because of space constraints. The group's other sources of income come from a call centre and a programme to collect and sell used household items. The mushrooms are sold at Boksburg shops, such as the Food Lovers Market, which generates a “fairly significant” income, Viljoen says.
Mushrooms and urban agriculture
“We believe that mushroom farming should be part of any urban agriculture project, at any scale,” says Morgado. “It gives valuable insight into living systems, how to maintain healthy soil, and the relationships between fungi and microorganisms. Mushrooms are healthy, nutritious and have high value, so they can be a really good source of income.”
Danette says mushrooms can be integrated with and grown underneath other crops. They can create the shady microclimate necessary for certain fungi that grow in the soil. Mushrooms help create healthy soil for other crops, and vegetable substrates that are often considered waste, such as maize cobs, can be used to grow fungi, closing the loop in the urban agriculture process.
“Once the substrate used for mushroom cultivation is no longer valuable, it can be put back into the soil by composting or using it for mulch. No agricultural waste is generated. All resources are utilised and, if there is no suitable substrate, we can even exchange it with neighbouring farms,” she says.
Fungal Network
In Europe, there is a huge variety of wild mushrooms. You might even find a delicious king oyster growing on a log in the forest. When people find a mushroom, they are eager to know what kind of mushroom it is and many share tips on how to cultivate it. The exchange between amateurs and experts is essential to expand knowledge about fungi. There are millions of fungal species, but only about 150,000 are known to date.
Locally, the Mycological Society of South Africa runs such a network and its members, Afrifungi, are joining a growing network of small-scale growers across the country, with staff making frequent trips to the Western Cape to run workshops.
“The Cape is more open to the culture and ideas of permaculture. There is more space than Johannesburg and more people are home growers, but interest is growing across the country,” says Koolemans.
Johannesburg has very dry winters, so it's necessary to stabilise conditions and maintain humidity based on the season, microclimate and general weather conditions. “You could find 10 different microclimates in this garden alone.”
He added: “There were a lot of small farmers growing in containers, but they really suffered when the power went out. You can't grow indoors without a back-up energy system. We're trying to encourage low-tech outdoor fungus cultivation, either on logs or in backyard oyster mushroom towers, which can be done alongside vegetable growing.”
What exactly is a fungus?
Fungi, players in nutrient cycling in nature, are single-celled or complex multicellular organisms. Fungi are more similar to humans than plants and can be found in almost every habitat, although most live on land. A group called decomposers grow in soil or on dead plant matter and play an important role in breaking down and cycling carbon and other elements.
Fungi are neither plants nor animals, and they secrete enzymes outside their bodies to digest food. The three main groups of fungi are the multicellular filamentous molds, the macroscopic filamentous fungi that form large fruiting bodies commonly called “mushrooms,” and the single-celled microscopic yeasts such as those used in baking and brewing.
Plants provide fungi with access to food, and fungi provide plants with access to water and nutrients. Many scientists believe this relationship enabled plants to first colonize land. Subterranean mycelial networks allow plants to communicate with each other and even share nutrients.
“Two issues always come up in AfriFungi workshops: magic mushrooms and poisonous mushrooms. We always have to solve this mystery. There are only a limited number of mushrooms that are hallucinogenic and dangerous,” says Hobbs.
The only recorded instance of traditional use of hallucinogenic mushrooms in Africa has been documented recently. Psilocybin Malt Apparently used by Basotho healers in Lesotho.
This is part of the M&G's running series on urban agriculture.