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How Christmas Trees Could Become a Source of Low-Carbon Protein
In the nascent field of mycoforestry, tree-growers are combining saplings with symbiotic fungi to grow timber and mushrooms on the same plots of land.
Now, thanks to a £554,000 ($706,000) grant awarded last year by the UK’s innovation agency, he is raising 14,200 seedlings—11,000 Scots pine, and a mixture of Sitka spruce, silver birch, hazel and English oak—on a former farmstead, home to a picturesque low white building which has been converted into a lab and office. Having an annual mushroom crop, Taylor says, would incentivize tree-planting by addressing two key challenges that farmers and landowners level at woodland creation: that it makes land unavailable for food production, and the long wait before tree-growers see a return on their investment in the form of harvestable timber. Thomas says these are valid questions, but points out that this project is focused on using fungal species native to the planting area, and with less aggressive strains than those already currently inoculated by many nurseries to encourage tree growth—although he acknowledges there could be potential for another company to look to use some form of genetic modification in the future, which would require regulatory approval.
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