This article is from page 2 of the 2012-05-22 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 2 JPG
MAGIC mushrooms located in the Burren could hold the key to tackling world hunger in the coming years. Scientists have discovered that networks of microscopic fungi play a key role in aiding plants to extract and process nutrients from the soil.
According to Dr Ray Woods of the British organisation Plantlife, intensive farming, fertiliser and human intrusion have destroyed these fungal networks across Europe, with the Burren’s wild grasslands now considered as a fungal “arc” for the future of European farming.
Recent studies have also shown that these tiny fungi can help plants to fight off disease and can even allow for the flow of nutrients from one plant to another over large distances.
“We are just starting to learn how vital these fungi are for growing crops. They are intimately connecting with well-known plants such as hazel, using 50 or 60 different types of fungi to grow,” said Dr Woods.
“The wild flowers of the Burren are a perfect example of this. There are so many different plants and flowers there and none of them ever seem to dominate. In the Burren, you have one of the last unimpacted areas of grassland anywhere in the world. It is really one of the very few places in the world where research into fungal networks can still be done. It is an arc for these fungi.”
One of the most important abilities of these fungal networks is helping plants to extract nitrogen from the soil. At present, virtually all world agriculture is built on the use of large amounts of industrialised nitrogen fertiliser, which is made using large amount of oil.
As global oil supplies continue to dwindle, the use of oil in producing fertiliser is considered by many to be the biggest challenge facing world agriculture in the next 50 years. This has prompted many people to exam- ine the role that the intact Burren fungal networks could have on world agriculture.
“People are already coming to the Burren [to study the fungi] but it is difficult at times to know who is coming and what they are doing. You come across people from universities in Germany, Holland, Ireland and the UK in the Burren,” said Stephen Ward of the BurrenBeo Trust.
“If they are doing original research, then chances are they would contact an organisation like the BurrenBeo Trust because we can be helpful.”
For more information on the BurrenBeo Trust, visit www.burrenbeo. com.