Can Mushrooms Clean the Gulf Spill?

Yesterday, I visited Mushroom Mountain near Liberty, SC, because I like to eat mushrooms. I left not only with food for my stomach (once it spawns), but also a head full of ideas.

Can mushrooms really clean up the oil spill in the Gulf?  I'm still thinking about that this morning. Tradd Cotter, a mycology expert and owner of Mushroom Mountain farm, thinks they can.

That's Tradd leading our tour of his farm and about two minutes into it, I could see that Tradd believes mushrooms can save the world.  He explained how they can help trees exchange nutrients in the forest, break down waste, kill fire ants. He says a mushroom called the Turkey Tail may be able to help women with breast cancer recover.  It sounded, well, a little too good to be true.

This morning, I found a Ted talk by Paul Stamets that covers in depth much of the same information that Tradd mentioned yesterday.  Stamets also goes into detail here about the potential for mushrooms to help in the Gulf.

Meanwhile, I've got my starter culture and am hoping I'll get something like these I saw in the greenhouse at Mushroom Mountain.  I'll be using coffee grounds as the base. In a few weeks I expect, not to save the world, but to be able to sautee some fresh mushrooms--and maybe learn a few things in the process.