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Plant nurseries that sell trees with symbiotic mushrooms bonded to their rootstock

Image credit: New Phytologist Foundation

Darko Savic

Darko Savic Nov 07, 2022

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Plant nursery that sells young trees with symbiotic mushrooms inoculated into their rootstock. Buy a tree and grow delicious mushrooms for free.
Why?
A few of the most sought-after mushroom species are very difficult to cultivate. In order to enjoy Boletus edulis, or Chanterelle people must get lucky while foraging in the forest.
A business opportunity for plant nurseries.
Buy a tree, and get great mushrooms as part of the package.
How it works
Some of the most highly regarded mushroom species are mycorrhizal. They develop a symbiotic relationship with other plants. These relationships are complex and not yet fully understood - making the cultivation of mycorrhizal fungi very difficult to establish.

A plant nursery could sell young trees that have had their rootstock inocculated with Porcini and Chanherelle mycelium. People buying them would be instructed to pile on dead branches around the trees every year so that the mycelium has food to thrive on.
The nursery would develop a process where they uncover parts of each young plant's roots and dip it for a while into the liquid culture of the desired mushroom species.

mushrooms plants business ideas

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General comments

Shubhankar Kulkarni

Shubhankar Kulkarni2 years ago

This article gives a list of plant-mushroom pairs found in nature. Could be useful to cultivate and sell them in pairs.

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Subash Chapagain

Subash Chapagain2 years ago

Seems like a good idea if it implies that the plants to be sold are for the field and not for indoor decoration. Also, the symbiosis between the roots of the trees and the mushrooms would be greatly influenced by the actual root microbiome. Hence, with the rootstock and mushrooms, the culture should also consist of the basic minimum mixture of these bacteria. 

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Shubhankar Kulkarni

Shubhankar Kulkarni2 years ago

Subash Chapagain Right. Nurseries plant and grow trees until are viable. I think they could add soil rich in the associated microbiome during the growth phase. Once you bring the tree home, care must be taken while planting the tree to not remove the existing soil entirely. The existing microbiome may flourish if the climatic conditions are the same.

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Povilas S

Povilas S2 years ago

I like the idea, but I'm not sure how efficient this would be in terms of harvesting the mushrooms. If it was easy, this method would be used for cultivating mushrooms on a commercial scale. In the video that you linked, the guy talks about truffles being cultivated that way, not the other species. 
I think the product might be more of use for its symbolic rather than practical value, one might find a mushroom around the tree here and there, but I wouldn't expect to benefit from that in any real sense. 
I think many other factors influence the growth of these mushrooms, like suitable soil, climatic conditions, other plants growing around, etc. Forest creates a very specific micro niche one might not be able to recreate in household settings.

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