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

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目为种植高营养的羊肚菌创造了残疾人友好的食品生产设备。创造对残疾人友好的设备可以为极度缺乏服务的人群提供更多的工作，也可以为农民提供更大的员工基础，因为他们经常需要更多的员工。该项目还将重点放在农村和城市食物沙漠地区的农民身上，这些地区的营养需求得不到满足。剩余的定植琼脂培养基和子实体将脱水并提取成进一步的营养补充。羊肚菌及其菌丝体富含营养，对健康有许多益处。让公众更容易持续购买蘑菇将改善美国人的健康和福祉。羊肚菌的高供应量将允许它们广泛用于营养补充剂和蘑菇烹饪在烹饪界的复兴。本项目是基于一种新颖的、独立的方法，在琼脂培养基上使用单一接种步骤生长新鲜羊肚菌（m.esculenta）子实体。目前还没有满足市场需求的商业化生产方法。新鲜羊肚菌的主要供应商是通过觅食，这是极其劳动密集型的，生态破坏，每年有一个小窗口的采购机会。这严重限制了这种营养丰富、美味可口的食物来源的供应。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。第一个障碍是展示稳定生产的小气候条件。该项目必须从初步方法中确定一种改进的方法，以便最终确定适当的小气候条件。第二个目标是纳入保护措施，防止不利影响，例如正在肆虐世界各地蘑菇农场的木霉流行病。SBIR第一阶段的成功将通过保持产量的能力来衡量，同时生产出与野生羊肚菌相同或更好的口味一致性的羊肚菌。味道将由一组经验丰富的厨师评估。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.