A material made from the outer layers of portabello mushrooms shows promise in replacing graphite in lithium batteries.

Heavy metals accumulate within fungal tissues, which can then be removed and disposed of safely. The dense meshwork of mycelium can even be used to filter polluted water. ‘Mycofiltration’ removes infectious diseases such as E. coli and can sop up heavy metals like a sponge – a company in Finland uses this approach to reclaim gold from electronic

One of the ways fungi might help save the world is by helping to restore contaminated ecosystems. In ‘mycoremediation’, as the field is known, fungi become collaborators in environmental clean-up operations.

To grow mushrooms on any kind of scale, growers have to develop a keen nose for material to satisfy voracious fungal appetites. Most mushroom-producing fungi thrive on the mess that humans make. Growing cash crops on waste is a kind of alchemy. Fungi transform a liability with negative worth into a product with value. A win for the waste producer,

Other researchers are approaching the problem from a different angle. If humans have unthinkingly bred varieties of crops that form dysfunctional symbioses with fungi, surely we can turn around and breed crops that make high-functioning symbiotic partners? Field is taking this approach, and hopes to develop more co-operative plant varieties, ‘a new

Most modern crop varieties have been developed with little thought for their ability to form high-functioning mycorrhizal relationships. We’ve bred strains of wheat to grow fast when they are given lots of fertiliser, and ended up with ‘spoilt’ plants that have almost lost the ability to co-operate with fungi.

Mycorrhizal mycelium is a sticky living seam that holds soil together; remove the fungi, and the ground washes away. Mycorrhizal fungi increase the volume of water that the soil can absorb, reducing the quantity of nutrients leached out of the soil by rainfall by as much as 50 per cent.

A study published in 2019 by researchers at Agroscope in Zurich measured the scale of the disruption by comparing the impact of organic and conventional ‘intensive’ farming practices on fungal communities in the roots of crops. By sequencing fungal DNA, the authors were able to compile networks showing which fungal species associated with one

Global agricultural yields have plateaued, despite a 700-fold increase in fertiliser use over the second half of the twentieth century. Worldwide, thirty football fields’ worth of topsoil are lost to erosion every minute. Yet a third of food is wasted, and demand for crops will double by 2050. It is difficult to overstate the urgency of the