Even fungi can produce C02, awhile back I grew some Oyster mushrooms and placed the spawn in a bag along with my C02 meter. And sure enough it was full of C02 after awhile. Now I think it would be harder to manage a setup where you can collect gas from mushrooms to then feed to a grow tent or green house. But surely not impossible. One of the biggest problems can be fruit flies and gnats, things you do not want in a green house or grow tent.
We can see the bag reads 1626PPM, quite a high level C02. As a goal is around 1200PPM for optimal plant growth.
Now you may ask why is producing all this C02 so important for plants. It is because elevated levels of C02 can increase plant growth and general vigor. It also raises the plants heat tolerance by around 10F. Meaning I can grow plants in a tent that is 95F, when usually I would have to keep it under 85F. So not only I can increase heat tolerance, but the plants metabolic speed is raised by the heat, but without the risk of stress. Making everything produce faster inside the plant.
To better understand how plants get stressed when too hot, we must look at an enzyme called Rubisco. It can make up to half of the plants enzymes in leaves and this enzyme helps plants convert C02 to sugars, but when temperatures get too hot the enzyme may grab an Oxygen molecule instead of a Carbon Dioxide molecule. This wrecks havoc on the plants growing process and stresses it. But by increasing the amount of C02 PPM in the air we can avoid the heat stress by another 10 degrees F.
Having a high C02 environment, along with a high humidity level allows the plants stomas to open and uptake much more C02. And by raising temperatures in the green house or grow tent you can raise the plants metabolic cycle making it grow faster.
So if I was to use mushrooms to produce C02 to help a grow tent or green house. I would first need to build screen to keep out any fruit flies or spores that the mushrooms have. And then have the ability for the gas to pass through this filter but nothing else. But it could work, just have to keep a healthy mushroom colony going.
In a future post I will check out "grow bags" which are basically mushroom spawn in a breathable bag you can have near your plants to increase C02. Since I am about to be growing outside again soon I wont be needing them, but come winter time I will probably give the C02 mushroom spawn bags a try.
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