Adopt a Project: Innovative Soil Remediation using Mycelium & Biochar

We’re on the hunt for a business or charity partner that would like to Adopt a DEF Project to identify groundbreaking, natural recipes that enhance soil and water quality.

You could join forces with DEF to enable this innovative trial to discover how mycelium and biochar can enhance Devon’s soil and clean up our waterways.

Adopting a DEF Project is an excellent way to engage employees, customers, and other stakeholders – giving back to nature locally provides plentiful positive marketing/social media stories and feel-good vibes!

This is an invitation for a business or charity to partner with DEF to provide match-funds totalling £5,000 to enable us to support an exciting collaboation between a new Devon-based social enterprise (CIC), Exeter University’s Global Systems Institute, Plymouth University’s Sustainable Earth Institute, West Country Rivers Trust, South Devon AONB, and the Flete Estate.

Get in touch to enquire about adopting DEF’s Flete Field Lab project.

The partner organisations listed above are also providing matched support in terms of time, talent, water monitoring expertise, research resource, and access to suitable land for conducting the trials.

“On land, all life springs from soil. Soil is ecological currency. If we overspend it or deplete it, the environment goes bankrupt… Mycorestoration is the use of fungi to repair or restore the weakened immune systems of environments.” – Paul Stamets, Mycelium Running

About our Flete Field Lab project:

Microscopic mycelium and microbes underpin the health of our soil, and in turn the health of our waterways and life itself.

Flete Field Lab aims to rewild soil and restore water quality on the Flete Estate using mycofiltration and biochar made from local materials to develop low-tech solutions that can be shared widely in the UK and beyond.

The Flete Estate runs either side of the Erme Estuary, with ancient woodlands and diverse wildlife that have secured it’s SSSI status. But there are issues with agricultural run-off, soil depletion and other human interventions that have a negative impact on both the soil and water quality and therefore the wider environment.

Under the Environment Agency, the Erme operational catchment is made up of 7 waterbodies, only one of which is classified (as of 2019) as “Good” for Ecological Status. All seven of them fail Chemical Status and the overwhelming reasons for these failures are due to agricultural land management and the water industry.

This project aims to restore soils and improve water quality by mitigating and attenuating agricultural runoff using a combination of mycofiltration and biochar on pasture fields.

The funding will enable the project leaders to build a network of stakeholders, create a core team of scientists and specialists, set up a small field lab on the estate, and deliver two field trials.

Amount required to Adopt this Project: £5,000 (to be match-funded through DEF).

Deadline to Agreee Support: 30th June 2021.

Get in touch to enquire about adopting DEF’s Flete Field Lab project.

The key objectives of the project are:

  • Enhance soil ecology and improve water quality
  • Soil carbon sequestration
  • Attenuate flow and surface run-off, benefit drainage management
  • Sediment Management
  • Pollutant reduction
  • Habitat Creation (micro and macro)
  • Encourage sustainable and regenerative farming practices with evidence

 

“Mycofiltration is a new approach which uses fungi as a biological filter to remove persistent contaminants from both water and soil. Scientific studies have demonstrated how some species of fungi – like gourmet Oyster mushrooms – can digest pollutants like petrochemicals or bacteria, whilst others can remove and store heavy metals from the environment.” (Project Centre)

The biochar will be made by turning wood from Flete estate’s normal woodland management processes into biochar – discovering the best methods and designing a mobile biochar unit to help other Devon landowners/farmers apply local, circular, low impact practices to improve their soil and sequester carbon.

The research and intervention methods will be open source, meaning that we will freely share the ‘recipes’ that we discover are most effective for water and soil restoration projects taking place anywhere in Devon, and beyond!

If your business or charity would like to adopt this exciting DEF project to lever exponential positive impact – in Devon and beyond – please get in touch by 30th June 2021.

We’re very grateful for any support you are able to give to help us protect and restore nature in Devon.

Further reading on the wonders of mycelium: ‘Entangled Life’ by Merlin Sheldrake.

Discover more about the potential of biochar here.

Erme image credit: Flete.co.uk