Pink oyster mushrooms. Image: . Growing mycelium – or fungi-based – ‘leather’ substitutes using a new paste media has opened up the possibility of growing this bio-fabricated material faster, and of cultivating it more easily.
Researchers investigating how to grow and cultivate mycelium leather more effectively tested their hypotheses by growing and harvesting mycelium leather mats using a new paste of their own design as a substrate. Their findings are Mycelium materials offer a low-cost and environmentally sustainable alternative to some petroleum-based materials and a more sustainable and ethical alternative to animal-derived leather. They can be grown on a wide variety of agricultural and industrial organic waste or side streams.
With greater uptake and scaling of production, these products have the potential to become more economically viable than established traditional materials. They can also be optimised to meet consumer demands. The researchers examined mushroom compatibility for the purposes of leather mat development by using two fungal species: (reishi), a medicinal mushroom widely used within bio-design; and (pink oyster), a gourmet mushroom that has the tendency to quickly colonise the substrate and enter the fruiting stage – meaning it produces mushroom fruit bodies fast.
By carefully formulating a new paste substrate for the mushrooms to grow in, the researchers sought to enhance nutrient availability from the mushrooms; enable their scalability; an.
