plastic waste is an ever-expanding problem, with approximately 380 million metric tons of new plastic added to the world every year. but what if there was an alternative material that could replace petroleum-based plastics? there is one possibility: mycelium, the white, root-like structure that grows beneath mushrooms.

mycelium collects, stores and sends information to other plants and trees via its branching networks under the forest floor. it performs a network function, not unlike the internet, “an underground information highway that speeds up interactions between plants,” said zhao qin, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at syracuse university.

“mycelium consists of massive branching thread-like hyphae, which is stretched and split into substrates,” mycologist ajay singh writes in his paper, “development of sustainable myco-material from fungi.”

mycelium has a physical structure that gives it strength and durability that can replace single-use plastic packaging. that means it could be part of the solution to some of the world’s most pressing problems.

the united states alone creates more than 35 million tons of plastic in a year, according to the environmental protection agency. only an estimated 5% to 6% percent of plastic waste in the united states is recycled; the rest is sent to landfills or incinerated.

faced with a broken recycling system, some companies are making alternatives to petroleum-based plastics, creating products that are biodegradable or compostable.

ecovative tapped into the mycelium market—or myco-material market—over a decade ago. its core product is a replacement for single-use plastic such as styrofoam, commonly used in shipping and packaging products.

“we’re growing full sheets of mushroom tissue, which end up being the mushroom packing,” said ecovative chief marketing officer andy bass. “the mycelium packaging can be thrown in your garden and then decompose in 45 days.”

mycelium grows and thrives on agricultural waste by-product such as wood chips or decaying tree branches, shrinking agriculture waste streams.

“ecovative grows its mushroom on corn stalk, hemp hurd, and wood chips,” bass said.

like fungi on the forest floor, mycelium likes dark and damp growing conditions. humidity above 98% and temperatures between 24 and 25 degrees celsius (75 to 77 degrees fahrenheit) are ideal, says qin.

when mycelium grows on waste, the structure grows out and down. the hemp hurd substrate and mycelium are mixed in molds to form large sheets.

in addition to tackling the compounding issues of plastic pollution and agriculture waste, ecovative is also using mycelium to make meat alternatives. mycelium-based meat is the latest myco-market the company hopes to capitalize on. “we just cut the ribbon on our largest farm to date,” bass said.

in this case, ecovative’s “growth chamber” mimics this vertical mushroom farm, growing “in an aerial style,” said lacey davidson, ecovative’s marketing director. ecovative declined to show videos of its growth chamber out of concerns for their intellectual property.

“it looks like a dutch-style mushroom farm,” davidson said. “we have reconfigured this model to grow mycelium instead of mushrooms. instead of mushrooms popping up it looks more like one giant interconnected fluffy marshmallow growing a few inches above its feedstock.”

the 78,000-square-foot vertical farm in upstate new york can grow 3 million pounds of fungus-based meats per year. “we will be able to replace up to 1 million pounds of bacon,” bass said. as of july, 2022, mybacon is available in three health food stores, but the company has ambitious plans for expansion.

substituting plant-based alternatives for meat and other animal products can dramatically reduce society’s carbon footprint, mitigate climate change and improve human health, according to the latest findings from the united nations’ intergovernmental panel on climate change.

meanwhile, in the netherlands, innovators are focusing their myco-attention on furniture and building insulation. “mycelium-based foam and sandwich composites have been actively developed for construction structures,” qin said.

while these ancillary household goods do not pose the same threat to climate and the environment as plastic packaging or animal agriculture, the toxins commonly found in common construction materials do pose a risk to human health and do not exist within a closed-loop system, eventually ending up in landfills.

“even if eps [expanded polystyrene, commonly used for insulation] is disposed of correctly, it can take thousands of years to degrade, evidently making it extremely difficult to properly contain,” writes owen robertson in a report, “fungal future,” for the technical university of denmark. “this has resulted in bioaccumulation of toxic chemicals in food webs across the planet.”

ecovative’s licensed partner in the netherlands, grown bio, is working on a bio-composite, mycelium-based insulation product to replace expanded polystyrene.

the last hurdle to market success is convincing buyers that mycelium-based products are just as durable and reliable as plastic. “proving that these new bio-based materials have the same performance characteristics as the traditional materials is a challenge,” bass said.

“no-till farming is a soil management system where you essentially do not disturb the soil prior to planting as is done in “conventional tillage,” said roderick rejesus, ph.d. professor in the department of agricultural and resource economics at north carolina state university.

as a result of not disturbing the soil, crops from the previous season are left behind to break down, further adding fertilizer to the ground.

the practice of tilling the soil is as old as agriculture and was practiced across the world. tilling or digging anywhere from eight to 12 inches deep was thought to aerate the soil and remove weeds, preparing the soil for new planting.

the concept of not disturbing the soil took hold in the 1970s. agronomists and soil scientists started to understand the micro ecosystems below ground were compromised by tilling and doing more harm than good, unable to fulfill their role in the natural cycle.

“80% of all the insects live in the first two-three inches of the soil,” said ray archuleta, a soil health expert and no-till innovator of the year. “if you dig up the mesofauna you have to replace them and they contribute to the delicate nitrogen cycle. mesofauna like protozoa and nematodes eat bacteria, and when they do they release nitrogen.”

tilling not only disrupts the natural nitrogen fertilizer process that gives life to crops, but it also makes the soil more dry, leaving conditions ripe for erosion.

a financial consideration

in a recent study, rejesus analyzed how land values grow monetarily by adopting the practice of no-till.

rejesus matched satellite data with land value data for 2007, 2012, 2017 covering 12 states. his study found a 1% increase in no-till adoption rate in the study states leads to an average increase of $7.86 per acre in agricultural land value.

no-till “curbs erosion, benefits soil organisms and adds to diversity, and creates a more stable internal structure. it requires 50-80% less fuel and 30-50% less labor, so its perceived as contributing to less cost,” he wrote.

erosion has already stripped away about half of the topsoil on farmland across illinois and iowa, according to naturalists.

according to census data in rejesus’ study, just 27% of the u.s. practices no-till and the u.s. ranked first among all countries in no-till acreage.

holland farmer, francis de dobbelaere attended this year’s no-till farmer conference in st. louis to continue to learn about no-till. dobbelaere plans to incorporate this practice for the land he recently purchased in latvia. dobbelaere and his brother own and operate a farm that grows potatoes, onions, and grains, in holland. when dobbelaere and his brother move to their new 740-acre farm, in neighboring latvia, it will be no-till.

“potatoes need to be plowed, so at our farm, sia karli, in latvia, we will only grow wheat, canola, peas, barley, all winter crops,” said dobblaere. “people in latvia are not familiar with this [no-till] practice. it is so efficient, low cost, with minimal employees.”

protecting the worker worms

kelly and deanna lozensky own and operate guardian grains, a thriving 2,000-acre grain farm in minot, north dakota. one hour south of the canadian border, the lozensky’s grow heritage variety grains and stone-mill their flours to sell to a local commodity market.

“[no-till] is at the foundation of everything we do,” deanna lozenskey said. “we rely on soil biology to produce our crop. if i destroy the home of the underground workers, i have no underground workers to make my crop.”

the workers–or worms–and mesofauna that deanna lozensky refers to are the result of switching to no-till in 2000 and fully removing nitrogen fertilizer in 2013.

at the time they also had 6,000-acres of farm. deanna and kelly lozensky experimented with not using fertilizer on 500 acres of their farm between 2000-2012. the results were encouraging.

in 2013 guardian grains cut out added fertilizer completely. at that time they reduced their farmland from 6,000-acres to 2,000-acres, yet still remained profitable in yields and income.

“we use the same two combine machines as we did with three times the amount of land,” said deanna lozensky. “we are more profitable from the way we do things now.”

a fraction of a percentage of their yields goes toward making their own pasta from their grain. their pasta is from a french heritage wheat, rouge de bordeaux, dating back to the 1800s.

committing to no-till

kelly and deanna lozensky weren’t always a no-tillers. in 1999 when they first started farming, they tilled for one year.

“there was more labor in the one year that we tilled compared to years we didn’t,” kelly lozensky said.

nitrogen fertilizer that runoffs from farms into waterways is a compounding issue that no-till farmers do not contribute to: eutrophication.

because tilling the soil destroys organisms and mesofauna and disrupts the nitrogen cycle, farmers continue to buy nitrogen fertilizer to make up for the lull in the naturally occurring chemical element.

“soil is the most complex ecosystem on the planet. a farmer’s goal should always be to emulate the natural system,” archuleta said.  “we can attribute eutrophication–an access amount of nutrients commonly known as algal blooms– in the gulf from the overuse of nitrogen fertilizers.”

according to kelly lozensky, tilling farmers are in a hurry to get nitrogen, but they just need to adopt no-till farming to achieve the same results.

“human health depends on soil health so we better get it fixed,” deanna lozensky said.