Mushrooms (Part Duex)

I'm still investigating the possibility of using mushrooms for bio-assembly, (e.g. using mushroom "roots" to turn the products into a paper/plastic type material). I saw one of these at Whole Foods the other day:

Not my kit...but this is how it is intended to be used

It's a grow your own mushroom kit from Back to the Roots. I had been looking for a source for the spores I would need to inoculate the rice straw, and here it was, right between the ginger and the bean sprouts. The package contains a bag of spore-infused coffee grounds and a little misting bottle. All you do is cut open the cardboard, soak the grounds in water overnight, and mist regularly. My plan is to boil the rice straw so it is free from competing organisms, and then blend into small pieces so the mushrooms can do their work quicker. Then I'll mix the rice straw with some of the inoculated coffee grounds and hope those mycelium start to party. I'm hoping for tasty mushrooms growing out of some kind of bio-assembled papery product. We shall see!


Also, I couldn't resist noting that website for the mushroom kit proudly displays an endorsement from this guy:

Weird.

Highlights from the Peabody

We made a trip up to Cambridge to get a close look at some of the pieces collected by The Peabody Museum at Harvard University. The focus was on the use of agricultural materials in textiles and basketry.

This felted cloth was my favorite. It is made by mashing plant fibers together until they all interlock, just like felting wool.

This weaving is incredible...so tight and regular.

In terms of weaving or basketry, out materials are far too irregular in shape and size. Unless of course, we could find some way to change that. I'm going to look into the rice straw and see if I can break it down into it's individual long fibers...that might open up the possibility of being able to spin them.

The felting is of course another path to investigate. I've been doing some boiling and mashing, which I'll report on soon!

What Are Other People Doing With This Stuff? (Part 1)

Eben Bayer: Are mushrooms the new plastic? | Video on TED.com

MIND = BLOWN

It seems like a slow process, and we're not really a world of slow manufacturing, but there's a lot of room to grow. How interesting that we have boxes and boxes of agriculture byproducts coming our way.

Given the chopped-up bits and pieces nature of the materials we will be working with, I'm sure some form of pressed composite material will take shape at some point. However, the approach of adding a bunch of glue and making it into different shapes feels...boring. But this makes that approach more interesting.

Question: Can you also grow mushrooms at the same time, and not just the root structures? In other words, could you make the composite and food at the same time?


Also, there's more info at ecovativedesign.com