How Christmas Trees Could Become a Source of Low-Carbon ProteinNEWS | 18 December 2024Based on calculations that the two scientists published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last March, cultivating ectomycorrhizal fungi while at the same time raising forests could sequester up to 12.8 metric tons of carbon per hectare annually—in stark contrast to producing other protein-rich foods, which all result in net carbon emissions. Even crops like pulses, which you might think would be carbon negative or carbon neutral, are net emitters across their lifetime.
“Pretty much all other crops that we grow will release carbon as they’re grown over their lifecycle. Even if you’ve got a plant that is sucking up carbon as it grows, the overall production system will release carbon,” says Jump. “But when you’re growing mycorrhizal fungi associated with the trees, because the trees suck so much carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, it means that the system itself is carbon negative.”
They also calculated that 1 kilogram of mushroom protein would be produced per 668 square meters of land, making it potentially more efficient than beef production, which ranges from 37 to 2,100 square meters per kilo. But to achieve this at scale, they must develop techniques that can easily be adopted by the forestry industry.
“The goal is that we can go into an existing tree nursery and slot into their practices, and work out how we can get the mycorrhiza grown on the root system for pennies,” Thomas explains. “If we get it that cheap and easy, that’s where we can make really big gains in terms of the impact for the environment.”
The trial is initially concentrating on tree types most commonly used in UK forestry plantations. But given the predicted increases in global temperatures over the coming decades, ensuring the viability of the tree and fungi species over their lifetimes is also vital. “We have a whole range of distribution maps that we’ve produced for decades going forward where we can demonstrate, according to all the data that we’ve got at the moment, that these are viable systems running forward through multiple forestry rotations,” says Jump. The team is currently modeling at the level of the woodland stand, a unit of forest made up of a relatively uniform group of trees, to assess the optimal distance between trees.Author: Jennifer Doudna. Alexa Phillips. Stephen Armstrong. Andrea J. Arratibel. Eve Thomas. Susan Solomon. Matt Reynolds. Chris Baraniuk. Geraldine Castro. Vaclav Smil. Source