THE MAGIC CARPET OF FUNGI, WITH RODGER SAVORY
Hart: You've mentioned the importance of fungi. Fungi are often neglected and misunderstood in farming, ranching and ecological restoration. What special role do fungi play in the process of turning deserts into grasslands?
Rodger: When I was in school, we had the plant kingdom and the animal kingdom, we didn't even know fungi existed.
And when I was in college, we still had the plant and the animal kingdom. And now we at least admit that there's a plant, animal and fungi kingdom, but our knowledge base of it is extremely limited.
Now, as for my excitement with the fungi kingdom … we all know fungi rot things. And we all know that to have a life cycle, you've got birth, growth, death and decay
Decay is the fungi’s role.
What we didn't realize was that birth is also the fungi’s role. So if the fungi are not sending out messages to plants to germinate and start growing, the birth doesn't even begin. So we can't have decay—and we can’t have birth—without fungi.
Now, know that … but we don't know that. So if you buy legume seeds, as a crop farmer, it's “inoculated.” All that means is, we've put fungi with it. So we know we need fungi, but we don't connect the dots.
I'm around 50 years old. I’ve learned to concentrate on the fungi. If we get the fungi right, other things fall into place. Where this was first demonstrated to me was one of the first biological carpets that I did really successfully. It really shook me as a researcher. It was in Zimbabwe. We put down the biological carpet and about two weeks later, the first rains came and it was just fascinating to watch, because the first thing that happened was the dung beetles buried all the dung.
And then the second thing that happened was a carpet of different fungi germinated, and fruiting bodies came up.
If I had to guess how many different species of fungi germinated on this one biological carpet, I would guess it was over 1,000 different species. There were little blue ones, little pink ones, yellow ones, big white ones and brown ones. It was just the sea of fungi.
And then the fungi all shriveled and wilted. Ten days later it rained and turned into a “Chia Pet” of fresh, new forage, germinating and growing. And then six weeks later a village woman in the area started yelling and screaming and got all excited because a grass that they hadn't seen since they were children was suddenly visible and available.
That was about 20 years ago. That was the first time I saw this distinct, an undeniable connection between fungi and the grasses starting to germinate. That's when I started to concentrate on fungi and pay attention.
So fungi are not just involved in decay, but also birth and emergence of plants.
"Turning Deserts Into Grasslands," with Rodger Savoryhttps://youtube.com/watch?v=nf9O_Cs2MQ0&feature=youtu.be