Sensory Suggestions: Fantastic Fungi
When the documentary Fantasic Fungi came out a couple of years ago, it quickly became a favorite of the Luminous Botanicals team. The film focuses on the work of self-taught mycologist Paul Stamets, a passionate advocate for the use of mushrooms and mycelium to heal our bodies, our minds, and our planet.
Not familiar with mycelium? As Stamets explains over beautifully animated footage, the mushrooms we harvest and eat are the fruit of mycelium “plants,” elaborate fungal networks that extend beneath the surface of every acre of forest, meadow, and farmland. Mycelium forms symbiotic relationships with surface plants, soil microbes, and other small creatures living in the soil. These webs receive sugars and carbon dioxide from plants, and in return break down and share hard-to-access elements such as nitrogen, calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus, boosting plant growth and the nutrient density of resulting fruits and vegetables.
As Stamets explains, mycorrhiza networks – another name for the mutually-beneficial partnerships of fungal networks and green plants – also hold enormous potential to sequester carbon in the soil. When trees and plants are supported by healthy mycorrhiza, up to 70% of the carbon they absorb is consumed by the fungal network and locked into the soil. And when mycorrhiza are utilizing high levels of carbon dioxide in the soil, trees and plants respond by inhaling even more CO2 from the atmosphere.
One of the key tenets of regenerative agriculture – practiced by our partners East Fork Cultivars and Phoenix Rising Farms – is not to till the soil, because turning over the soil breaks up delicate mycorrhiza networks. Instead, they top dress with compost and manure and add plant ferments to feed the soil and the mycelium, which in turn feed the plants.
Stamets is also a proponent of the medicinal and therapeutic use of mushrooms. The film features selections from his 2011 TED talk, where he discusses treating his mother’s stage 4 breast cancer with Turkey Tail mushrooms, and also interviews with Michael Pollan, author of How to Change Your Mind, who talks about the emerging field of psilocybin therapy.
Fantasic Fungi is currently streaming for free on Netflix and can be rented for a small fees at iTunes, Amazon, YouTube, and Google Play. You can learn more about Stamets’s work and browse for mushroom growing kits and supplements at Fungi Perfecti, the company Stamets founded right here in the Pacific Northwest.