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Magical Mushroom – Europe's first industrial-scale mycelium packaging producer

magicalmushroom.com

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Re: Magical Mushroom – Europe's first industrial-scale mycelium packaging producer

#81

Post by holly01 »

jcims wrote: post #34

Just a side note. I started growing mushrooms a couple of years ago. Very interesting and fulfilling hobby, they are incredibly interesting critters. Takes a little bit of dedication to get started but once you start seeing them fruit and making your own substrate it's quite inexpensive and a lot of fun. I have a feeling lots of folks in this community would really like it. Basic starter package is a 'monotub', selec…

+1

I started a few months ago and it’s a great hobby. It’s like low maintenance gardening that you can do all indoors. It’s very satisfying to watch something grow. I think my only reoccurring cost is the coco coir I use as a substrate and the wheat berries, which are both very cheap.

Re: Magical Mushroom – Europe's first industrial-scale mycelium packaging producer

#82

Post by fsniper »

orwin wrote: post #28

My sister worked as an intern on mycelium as fertilizer. Basically, using cover crops create a small mycelium layer that helps plant grow and reduce fertilizer use (by fixing nitrogen probably). Her job was to find molecules that would make the mycelium, and only the mycelium, grow quicker. That's a very interesting field to study, and it seems promising.

Reading the first sentence have me a lot of " Last of us" vibes. I hope she's doing ok :)

Re: Magical Mushroom – Europe's first industrial-scale mycelium packaging producer

#83

Post by holly01 »

convolvatron wrote: post #75
jcims wrote: post #34

Just a side note. I started growing mushrooms a couple of years ago. Very interesting and fulfilling hobby, they are incredibly interesting critters. Takes a little bit of dedication to get started but once you start seeing them fruit and making your own substrate it's quite inexpensive and a lot of fun. I have a feeling lots of folks in this community would really like it. Basic starter package is a 'monotub', selec…

what do you use as a low-cost substrate? I think this would be something I'd be into, but the idea of buying 5lb bags to be delivered by UPS really kind of takes the magic out of it.

Coco coir is very cheap and is what I use. If you want more of a project, you can make the inoculation jars and sterilize the grain yourself. That way you’ll be taking a spore/liquid culture syringe from a tiny blob of mycelium to a whole network of fruiting bodies. Doing that will also be much cheaper in the long run if you stick with the hobby

Re: Magical Mushroom – Europe's first industrial-scale mycelium packaging producer

#84

Post by mikkupikku »

How flammable are these? I've seen mycelium leather substitutes before but from what I understand if even a single spark lands on it, it's likely to start a smoldering fire that will consume the whole thing. Basically the perfect tinder.

Re: Magical Mushroom – Europe's first industrial-scale mycelium packaging producer

#85

Post by Barbing »

foobiekr wrote: post #80
idontwantthis wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any risk of wild, potentially dangerous, mushrooms colonizing your garden?

There is always a risk of things like this. For example, to make my winecap bed, I had to get a bunch of woodchips. There is no way woodchips that one will buy in bulk are not contaminated with the spores of other wood-eating fungus. What you learn is how to positively identify the mushrooms you intend to produce/eat. It doesn't take long. I've only had alien mushrooms show up once.

Do people ever try to irradiate or fumigate or however they’d treat the woodchips?

Maybe it would cost 10 times as much as the wood chips themselves… small batch spore bakeoffs…

Re: Magical Mushroom – Europe's first industrial-scale mycelium packaging producer

#86

Post by eMPee584 »

foobiekr wrote: post #80
idontwantthis wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any risk of wild, potentially dangerous, mushrooms colonizing your garden?

There is always a risk of things like this. For example, to make my winecap bed, I had to get a bunch of woodchips. There is no way woodchips that one will buy in bulk are not contaminated with the spores of other wood-eating fungus. What you learn is how to positively identify the mushrooms you intend to produce/eat. It doesn't take long. I've only had alien mushrooms show up once.

"I've only had alien mushrooms show up once" gonna be my reassuring quote of the day, thanks : )

Re: Magical Mushroom – Europe's first industrial-scale mycelium packaging producer

#87

Post by Barbing »

Tepix wrote: post #58
kepano wrote: post #43

There are a few companies in this space, notably Ecovative, who have been trying to make mycelium-based packaging for almost two decades. The problem is that it takes around 7 days for each piece of packaging to "grow", and the finished part is heavy and not compressible so it adds significant cost in manufacturing, storage and transit. And these costs don't get any better with scale. For those reasons, mycelium pack…

Heavy? Two packages made from mycelium can behave very differently because “mycelium composite” is a category, not a single recipe. Particle size, fibre content, and the ratio of substrate to mycelium all change density. Higher density generally brings higher compressive strength and better edge definition, but it also increases weight and can reduce the springy cushioning that protective packaging needs. Source: htt…

Sounds like this might be your area of expertise. For the rest of us, take a shoebox. How much ballpark extra weight we talkin’ to have a livable planet? (Maybe the mushrooms would be ~2x as heavy as standard shoeboxes for example, to meet existing spec.)

Or how about for the glasses box they show on the site in OP, or a plastic sleeve like Americans sell Oreo cookies in. Anybody have any guesses?

Re: Magical Mushroom – Europe's first industrial-scale mycelium packaging producer

#88

Post by fodkodrasz »

Barbing wrote: post #85
foobiekr wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is always a risk of things like this. For example, to make my winecap bed, I had to get a bunch of woodchips. There is no way woodchips that one will buy in bulk are not contaminated with the spores of other wood-eating fungus. What you learn is how to positively identify the mushrooms you intend to produce/eat. It doesn't take long. I've only had alien mushrooms show up once.

Do people ever try to irradiate or fumigate or however they’d treat the woodchips? Maybe it would cost 10 times as much as the wood chips themselves… small batch spore bakeoffs…

Adding poisons (fumigation) is definitely not a good idea. In mushroom plants the compost/humus used to grow mushrooms is often steam boiled to sterilize it, to keep the yields high and the production safe from any dangerous contamination. It is seeded with the spores of the desired species afterwards.

Re: Magical Mushroom – Europe's first industrial-scale mycelium packaging producer

#89

Post by Barbing »

mikkupikku wrote: post #84

How flammable are these? I've seen mycelium leather substitutes before but from what I understand if even a single spark lands on it, it's likely to start a smoldering fire that will consume the whole thing. Basically the perfect tinder.

What’s a Class A Fire Rating?

https://mushroompackaging.com/pages/technical-data

Re: Magical Mushroom – Europe's first industrial-scale mycelium packaging producer

#90

Post by Barbing »

jvm___ wrote: post #63
cogman10 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the old days, wood shaving and even popcorn were the packing material of choice. The reason styrofoam is used is because it's cheaper (main) and it doesn't decompose when wet.

Molasses was cheap because it was the packing material for plate glass - which was only made in England. Place your plate glass in a barrel, fill it with molasses and you can ship it to North America. Just wash off the glass and you're good to go.

That’s wonderful so I want it to be true. Your comment is one of the top results on my search for more info!
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