Skyler Oudega

Date: 10/27/2016 Essay #2, V. 1

Prof. Neil Schaeffer 2:40
Thesis: Conventional pesticides should be replaced by mycopesticides.

Mycopesticides and their Effects

Today, we have a corporate farming system based on greed and
monopolization. As new pesticides are produced, so are genetically modified plants
made to be resistant to these chemicals, allowing agriculture corporations to grow
stronger, richer, and more dangerous. The effects of GMOs and pesticides are not
yet fully understood, though we still shower and build the foods we eat every day
using them. Why? Because there is money to be made, a market to be seized, and a
bureaucratic government that wont stop the monopoly. Conventional pesticides
should be replaced by mycopesticides, promoting further research and eliminating
the need for corporate pesticide monopolies and their dangerous chemical effects.
The world of farming until recent times has been what we today consider
organic. Indigenous peoples found ways of growing and harvesting that not only
promoted bountiful growth but did not attract pests, (Lopez, 1). But soon when a
more systematic farming method began to spread, the need for faster growing,
stronger crops became apparent and a need for widespread elimination of pests
became obvious. This is when those harmful pesticides began to be utilized in mass
quantities, despite their harmful effects. Since it was made known to the public that
these pesticides were harmful in very unobvious ways, there has been a call to find
ways to revert ourselves back to organic and even local food-production techniques.
This call-to-action has resulted in a massive movement for the development of

sustainable and ecological food-production techniques. The need for these

techniques gave rise to fields of study such as permaculture that promote
sustainability and self-reliance and demonstrate how beneficial a stronger
connection to the environment can be. But today, we are still stuck in our industrial
system that rewards environmental rape and cares little for the good of the people
it serves. We still have dangerous pesticides and we still have GMOs that could lead
to ruin in the future if not kept under control. So how do we change this system
completely? Biopesticides: specifically, I suggest mycopesticides- mushroom
derived pesticides.
When it comes to mushrooms, there is next to no one who has the expertise
and experience of Paul Stamets. A Washington based mycologist, Paul heads his
company Fungi Perfecti and researches specific applications of mushrooms with his
colleagues. These applications can be medical- he has found turkey-tail mushrooms
to be a source for breast cancer treatment; they can involve waste cleanup- he
worked with Japanese teams to find a natural way to clean up radiation from the
Fukushima Daiichi disaster and he worked to find natural ways to clean oil after the
Deep Horizon Spill; and they can be agricultural- he came up with ways to use
mushrooms and their derivatives as pesticides, (Stamets, 1). A patent filed in 2000
by Paul introduced the idea of the use of mushrooms to replace commonplace
pesticides, (Stamets^2, 1). They are safe. They are cheap. They are societychanging. Since it has been seventeen years since the patent was filed, plenty of
people have contributed their voice and more importantly their research. But how
do these mycopesticides work?
Mycopesticide is a broad term. It covers any kind of pest-killing process
derived from fungi. Essentially, the idea of mycopesticides is that if you have a pest,

say termites, and you want to kill them because they are destroying a wooden
structure, you should be able to find a fungus that can naturally kill them in one way
or another. In Stamets book, Mycelium Running, he outlines an instance where his
house, built in the damp old growth redwood forest of Washington, was being
consumed by carpenter ants. They were attracted to the fungi that grew through his
house naturally. To kill these pests, he decided to grow a specific fungus on rice, in
this case the mycelium or base fungal body of Metarhizium anisopliae, (an
entomopathogenic fungi, meaning it parasitizes insects). It has no effect on
mammals, and has a small colony size, meaning it wont spread and wont effect
anything but the carpenter ants. Soon after placing a small amount of colonized rice
in his living room, the ants dragged the grains back to their colony to be consumed
by the population. Within weeks, all the ants had been killed by the fungus and their
corpses, spread through the skeleton of the house, were left as clear indication to
other ants to avoid the area, leaving Stamets home completely ant-free. This
allowed proof to the concept and allowed Stamets to pursue mycopesticides on a
larger scale.
Understanding the mycological science behind the process is not as
important as understanding the brilliant consequences of taking this process and
expanding its scope. In taking certain forms of mycelial entomopathogenic fungi
and placing them strategically throughout a structure or field on certain baits such
as sugar or rice grains, a pest insect population can be killed off in a matter of
weeks. The mycelial masses would then decompose into the soil or sporulate,
discouraging growth of future generations of pests. The application of these
mycopesticide techniques can theoretically be applied to any of the 950,000 insect
species, meaning disease-carrying mosquitos, structure-destroying ants and

termites, or crop decimating locusts and beetles can be introduced to

entomopathogenic fungi artificially and killed off, (Estimated, 1). And even though
most research has been conducted on insect-targeting fungi, there are also fungi
known to attack and parasitize weeds, nematodes, and even other fungi, making
the scope of mycopesticides even broader, (Leathers, para 2).
In one study by students Ibrahim, Sewify, and El-Deen, (Beauveria bassiana
(Balsamo), a potential Mycopesticide, 2016), it was even shown that fungi could be
used to save part of the bee population by eradicating mites known to kill hives,
presenting an application beyond farming. Mycopesticides are still unproduced on a
large scale simply because there is a need for research in production and
distribution, mainly in the realm of their direct and lasting effects on the
environment. But if research were to begin, we could see the implementation of
mycopesticides in home pest control, agriculture, termite repellant, disease
prevention, and restoration of species plagued by insect parasites and predators.
The applications of mycopesticides can potentially provide plenty of support for the
human race and the species we interact with.
With the production of weed-killing mycopesticides though, there becomes
little reason for harmful chemicals to be dispersed. There also become few reasons
for farmers to purchase their GMO plant counterparts such as Monsantos Roundup
series of products. This is simply because with the ability to kill weeds and insects
with specific fungi, they do the work of traditional means of pest control. With the
production and research of mycopesticides, the days of dangerous corporatemonopolized farm products could see an end and a return to organic farming can
begin as we work further with the complex relations between plants, animals, and
fungi.

The issues that come with the actual implementation of mycopesticides are
broad but really come in two forms: safety and corporate blocking. In terms of
safety, there are questions regarding the spread of this fungi, how well it can be
contained to a certain group of a species when released, and how it can be
distributed on the market in a widespread way safely for intelligent, educated use.
These questions can be answered effectively with more serious research that can
come from more serious consideration from governments and agriculture industry
heads. This leads into the corporate blocking issue. Governments generally push
for stabilization of an industry, not the complete restructuring of it. In an industry as
massive, vital, and fiscally expansive as the agriculture industry, it is a dangerous
thing to implement wholly new techniques of pest control. According to the USDA,
Agriculture and agriculture-related industries contributed $985 billion to the U.S.
gross domestic product (GDP) in 2014, a 5.7-percent share, (USDA para 2). Like
the conversion to organic farming that Biopesticides could promote, the actual full
scale implementation of these methods would take time. The patents are there and
research has been conducted relatively broadly, but getting these pesticides
produced on a large enough scale and getting farmers to actually use them and
understand how to use them is a difficult and time consuming task. It is also a task
that involves fighting multi-billion dollar agricultural corporations like Monsanto to
even conduct research that could potentially lead to the replacement of their
current chemical-pesticide products and GMOs. It is a long road, but I dont see a
better solution out there to not only solve our problems, but also to bring us back to
ecological health as a species and a world.
Since the 2000 patent was released by Stamets for mycopesticides there
has been plenty of interest in the concept. Humanity wants solutions to our

environmental and consumerist problems and mycopesticides give the potential to

fix a good portion of them. Pushing for ecological balance, we must begin to
implement new processes in many fields, with agriculture being on the top of the
list. We have a responsibility to restore and sustain the environment even if it is not
easy of comfortable to do so. Utilizing mycopesticides is not easy or comfortable,
but their results have the potential to be far-reaching and beneficial to us and the
ecosystems we inhabit.

Works Cited
*Ann Lopezs speech to Carson College plenary, Monday 24 th October, 2016
Stamets, Paul. Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help save the World.
Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed, 2005. Print.
Stamets, Paul. Mycopesticides. Myco Pesticides Llc, assignee. Patent
US20040161440 A1. 4 Oct. 2000. Print.
"Estimated Number of Animal and Plant Species on Earth." Estimated Number of
Animal and Plant Species. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Oct. 2016.
Leathers, Timothy D., Subhash C. Gupta, and Nancy J. Alexander.
"Mycopesticides: Status, Challenges and Potential." Journal of Industrial
Microbiology 12.2 (1993): 69-75. Web.
Topic, By. "Ag and Food Sectors and the Economy." USDA ERS -. N.p., n.d. Web. 28
Oct. 2016.
Beauveria bassiana (Balsamo), a potential Mycopesticide for efficient Contr...:
EBSCOhost. (2016). Retrieved November 4, 2016, from
http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=2&sid=930fff30-cd11-42fb-ae2f0e79a520d857%40sessionmgr1&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d
%3d#AN=112159245&db=a9h

INTERESTING END-NOTE: In doing this paper, I learned a lot about a field that
has for a long time escaped my interest. Ive always had an interest in mycology,

but hadnt learned a lot about insect-fungi relationships. Once I started reading
though, it became one of the most interesting ecological dynamics Ive ever read
about. One fungal species called Cordyceps Iloydii attaches to its ant-host and
gouges through the ants exoskeleton into its brain, compelling the ant to climb as
high as it can into the rainforest canopy. The fungi mycelium grows around the ant,
(that by now has died), tethers the ant to the leaves or bark of the tree, and the
fungi in the ants head sprouts a mushroom that sporulates. By prompting the ant to
climb high into the forest canopy, the fungus has exponentially increased the radius
its spores can travel. I just found this to be one of the most amazing adaptations I
have ever read about. It was too interesting not to write about!