Mana Mushrooms

I hope you find these links to info useful. For the fans, I'll be snagging photos from the oft-mentioned flickr sets and adding explanations. Sign up for the newsletter for more info and breaking news before it hits the site!
Cheers.

Links:
CNN – Healthy Foods:
CNN on Healthful Foods

Bioluminescent fungi:
Bioluminescent fungi from Bioresurs
Bioluminescent fungi from Trek Nature
Bioluminescent fungi From Kiwi Pulse
Bioluminescent fungi from Pink Tentacle

Other fungi-related articles:
Washington Post Photographer-Mycophile
Electronic Gourmet
For what it’s worth, I had this idea when trying to figure the most space-efficient means to cultivate. The implications for transport-ready climate control may be daunting, especially considering conditions en-route. Just a consideration for the careful observer…
Mushrooms, trucks: grow ‘em on the way

And a quick quote of interest for avid Mana Mushrooms followers - accept no imitations

The Mushroom Growers’ Newsletter Vol XVI Number 11 March 2008
Front page:
Energy Impacts
“The Philadelphia Inquirer, February 17, carried an article highlighting the effects of energy costs on mushroom farms in the area. Chris Alonzo of Pietro Industries is quoted as saying: “My heating bills are up 50 percent over last year and up 100 percent over two years ago.”… Well, folks, we're facing increasing energy costs. There are many things we can complain about and even a few things we can DO about it. For example, if you are cultivating in a setting that allows you to pre-heat the water input to your system, perhaps with something as simple as locating a heliophilic water tank on your roof and gravity feeding to your boiler system, you will have increased energy costs if you need to pump the water to the unit, but reduced costs in heating the water for the boiler system. These nuances must be adapted based on custom calculations for your particular system design. If you live in Colorado or Nevada, where water is scarce and sunshine is bountiful, both factors will influence your system, in addition to the resources you have for infrastructure development, equipment, call it what you will...

The obligatory "tear sheet"...

In the face of upload challenges, I've copied and pasted the text here. I'll let this slide down the weight-list, so as not to occupy the page space inefficiently until such time as I can resolve the upload issues, which also extend to not yet being able to upload tif files, as those may be more universally platform-friendly...

Mana Mushrooms (pronounced “mahna”, a term that means "vital life force" among many other things) embodies cutting edge systems design. The dominant market players in the US domestic mushroom business produce mostly white button mushrooms (90%+ of the market) and other agaric varieties such as crimini and portabello. We do not intend to compete with these giant “big five” firms, but to attack the niche market of exotic edible mushrooms including king oyster, shiitake, enoki, and others, perhaps including reishi in the medicinal space.

Further insulating Mana Mushrooms from direct competition from better capitalized market players is the enormous sunk infrastructure cost for cultivating agaric varieties of mushrooms: huge concrete bunkers, windrow turners, and manure cultivation, which we’re not too fond of, either.
Using a ZERI (Zero Emissions Research and Initiatives) - inspired model of systems design, Mana Mushrooms will use byproducts of production from eco-industrial partners as inputs. One such example is Westport Rivers Winery and Buzzard’s Bay Brewery, near New Bedford, MA. In addition to using the spent grain from the brewing process, we will re-use the CIP or Cleaning-In-Process, food grade chemicals used in the brewing process to sterilize our mushroom substrate. By doing so, we will reduce costs of production; in traditional models, sterilization of substrate is achieved through the use of fossil fuel inputs to heat-sterilize material inputs. Another input is grass clippings from the Marion Institute, who will also serve as a strategic partner. These clippings have been grown without chemicals or pesticides.

Mana Mushrooms intends to generate no deleterious byproducts. When this is not possible, we will innovate to develop new best practices. We are pursuing opportunities to increase our competitive advantages by considering such issues as extended producer responsibility. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle is part of our business mantra.

We do not seek to be proprietary in all of our processes and innovations, in particular those that provide for the spread of sustainable agriculture. We believe that widespread adoption of such processes is not something to be protected from would-be infringers; it is important that these methods be adopted, uncompromised. The founders of Mana Mushrooms draw inspiration from thought leaders in this space, as well as well-established scientists with a firm understanding of the canonical literature Limits to Growth and Natural Capitalism, as well as Let My People Go Surfing and Cradle to Cradle are good examples of inspirational literature.

Mana Mushrooms is also pursuing opportunities to provide services to industry, large and small. For more details, including sources of information and inspiration, please visit our website at manamushrooms.com

This summary provides a relatively complete description of what I am trying to do with this site and the business.

Another article on the feeding of bison (rather than tamed ruminants) with p. ostr. substrate (mixed as silage). Again, I have had to copy and paste the article, due to difficulties uploading.

REPORT PREPARED BY

JONETTE SAM
BISON PROJECT, PICURIS PUEBLO
FOR SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES, INC. (SCI) CFRP PROJECT USING SMALL DIAMETER TREES FOR VALUE ADDED PRODUCTS

NOVEMBER, 2006

EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS FEEDING SPENT MUSHROOM SUBSTRATE MIXED WITH ALFALFA TO PICURIS PUEBLO BISON.

SCI has worked with Picuris Pueblo over the last three years on a CFRP pilot project to add value to thinned wood. One of the value added uses was after growing edible mushrooms on the chips, the substrate – rich in proteins and digestible for ruminants – might be made into a silage and fed to the bison as a way to lower animal feeding costs. This is based on work requested by SCI and done in Serbia with Drs. Ivanka Milenkovic and Milan Adamovich, who tested in lab conditions the oyster spent mushroom substrate from New Mexico mixed at 10%, 15%, 20% and 25% with corn as silage and demonstrated it has potential as a suitable animal feed for ruminants such as cows or bison – especially at the 20% level. It was also fed to Serbian cows which ate the mixture willingly.

Under the SCI CFRP project, an experiment was tried in October, 2006 at Picuris Pueblo to see if the bison would eat the mixture of spent mushroom substrate mixed with alfalfa grasses in early September and left for anaerobic treatment for silage for six weeks. We prepared the mixture by using about one inch of alfalfa then one inch of substrate and so on until the bins were filled to the top and pressed down to remove all air. Then the bin cover was taped closed.

After six weeks, it was fed to the bison in mid-November, 2006. While initially smelling and walking away from the silage, the next morning the spent substrate was completely gone with the presumption that the bison ate it although there are no photos to document this.

A further experiment is planned to be conducted using the spent mushroom substrata in bison feeding at Picuris Pueblo in New Mexico, fed fresh directly to the bison as well as a mix with both corn and alfalfa grasses prepared as silage.

*There are two photos that accompany the article above: one of a 25-gallon bucket filled with a straw mixture, presumed to be the substrate/straw mixture described above, the second of a few bison, looking at the block of material... or maybe the camera person.