Mysterious Fungi Bring a West Virginia Forest Back to Life

[Host] In the hills of West Virginia,

crews are preparing a very special kind of concoction.

[Mike] This is kind of like your sourdough starter.

It's already got everything in there,

kind of set up, and ready to rock'n'roll.

[Host] Except they're not making bread.

They're making shroom juice to give baby trees

in this once devastated forest a head start.

[Mike] Jed's about to lower a third or so.

[Jed] Get it covered, and ready to be processed

for planting.

[Host] This powder contains several species

of fascinating fungi called mycorrhiza.

The organism's positively packed natural soil

forming huge networks that run through forests.

Essentially the mycorrhizal fungi,

they have little underground root networks,

if you will, the hyphae,

and those grow around the roots of the tree,

and so, what you're looking at is you're looking at

an extension of that root system,

so that the trees can actually draw in moisture

and nutrients from a longer, deeper area

than what the roots themselves can do.

The fine hairs of the hyphae,

they can get into smaller cracks.

[Host] There are perhaps 50,000 species

of mycorrhizal fungi that form different kinds

of relationships with vegetation.

Check out this map of West Virginia.

Different colors represent these relationships

as they were prior to European settlement.

The problem here in West Virginia is that not

only did loggers clear out whole forests,

but farmers depleted the soil of nutrients.

Some types of tree came back,

but not red spruce, so shroom juice.

The shroom juice,

it's a combination of six different species

of ectomycorrhizal fungi.

It also has a beneficial bacteria in it.

A number of vitamins and enzymes that give the plant

a little bit of nutrients.

It also helps shelter the plant from heavy metals

that may be found in some of the disturbed soils

on these sites that we work on.

[Host] It ain't your typical shrooming, sure,

but it's probably more productive.