SBIR Phase I: Developing an Indoor Method to Produce Morel Mushroom Fruiting Bodies

SBIR 第一阶段：开发生产羊肚菌子实体的室内方法

• 批准号: 2325697
• 负责人: Bradford Ermel
• 金额: $ 27.5万
• 依托单位: ALL-IN PEPPERS AND SPECIALTY PRODUCE LLC
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2024-01-15 至 2024-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2325697&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; Developing; Indoor; Method

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project creates disability-friendly food production equipment for growing highly nutritious morel mushrooms. Creating equipment that is disability-friendly allows more work for an immensely underserved population and a greater employee base for farmers, who regularly need more employees than they can find. The project also focuses on farmers in both rural and urban food deserts, where nutritional needs aren’t being met. Leftover colonized agar media and fruiting bodies will be dehydrated and extracted into further nutritional supplementation. Morels and their mycelium are shown to be rich in nutrients and have many health benefits. Making the mushrooms easier for the general public to purchase consistently will improve the health and well-being of Americans. The higher supply of morel mushrooms will allow for their use in widespread nutritional supplements and a renaissance of mushroom cooking in the culinary world.This project is based on a novel, self-contained method to grow fresh morel mushroom (M. esculenta) fruiting bodies on agar media using a single inoculation step. There are no existing commercial production methods that meet the market demand. The main supplier of fresh morels is through foraging, which is extremely labor intensive, ecologically destructive, and has a small window of procurement opportunity every year. This severely limits the availability of this incredibly nutritious and delicious food source. Two major technical hurdles must be overcome in order to bring this production method to market. The first hurdle is demonstrating microclimatic conditions for consistent production output. The project must identify a modified approach from the preliminary method in order to definitively determine appropriate microclimatic conditions. The second aim is to incorporate protective measures from adverse effects, such as the ongoing Trichoderma spp. epidemic which plagues mushroom farms worldwide. SBIR Phase I success will be measured by the ability to retain production output while producing morels with consistency of taste equal to or better than wild morels. Taste will be evaluated by a team of chefs who are experienced with their use.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

这个小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目创造了残疾人友好的食品生产设备，用于种植高营养的羊肚菌。创造对残疾人友好的设备可以为服务严重不足的人口提供更多的工作，并为农民提供更大的雇员基础，他们经常需要比他们能找到的更多的雇员。该项目还关注农村和城市粮食沙漠中的农民，这些地方的营养需求得不到满足。剩余的定殖琼脂培养基和子实体将被脱水并提取为进一步的营养补充剂。羊肚菌和它们的菌丝体被证明含有丰富的营养物质，对健康有许多好处。让公众更容易购买蘑菇将改善美国人的健康和福祉。更多的羊肚菌供应将使其在广泛的营养补充剂和蘑菇烹饪在烹饪世界的复兴中得到使用。该项目是基于一种新颖的，独立的方法来种植新鲜的羊肚菌（M。esculenta）子实体在琼脂培养基上进行。目前还没有满足市场需求的商业生产方法。新鲜羊肚菌的主要供应商是通过觅食，这是劳动密集型的，对生态具有破坏性，每年的采购机会窗口很小。这严重限制了这种令人难以置信的营养和美味食物来源的可用性。为了将这种生产方法推向市场，必须克服两个主要的技术障碍。第一个障碍是证明稳定生产产量的小气候条件。该项目必须确定一个修改的方法从初步的方法，以明确确定适当的小气候条件。第二个目标是纳入保护措施，以防止不利影响，如正在进行的木霉属。这种流行病困扰着世界各地的蘑菇农场。SBIR第一阶段的成功将通过保持产量的能力来衡量，同时生产出味道一致性等于或优于野生羊肚菌的羊肚菌。口味将由一个厨师团队谁是他们的使用经验进行评估。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。