Mycorrhizae to the Rescue

Dec 15, 2009

Mycorrhizae to the Rescue

Rehabilitation of an abandoned mine waste site in the Philippines has been assisted by inoculating trees with commercial mycorrhizal inoculum. The article Fungi can rehabilitate barren mine waste dumpsite – study by Rudy A. Fernandez appears in The Philippine Star.

The title might be a bit misleading since the fungi aren’t doing the remediation all by themselves:

To rehabilitate the dump area, the team established a plantation of nitrogen-fixing trees and used the fungi Mycorrhiza, which are known for their extraordinary capacity for growing and surviving stress periods.

The biofertilizer inocula used are called Mycogroe and Mykovam, which are both apparently products of the University of the Philippines Los Banos. Not to be confused with MycoGrow, which is offered by Fungi Perfecti.