Measuring how well pink oyster mushrooms can decompose oil in soil

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LRThomas24
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Joined: Mon Sep 14, 2020 1:44 pm
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Measuring how well pink oyster mushrooms can decompose oil in soil

Post by LRThomas24 »

I'm doing an experiment where I am testing the effect of different levels of oil in soil on how well pink oyster mushrooms can perform mycoremediation (decompose oil). I'm going to be using motor oil and I was wondering how much oil I should put into the soil (I'm going to be using 12 ounces of soil per trial). I was also wondering if the method I am using for measuring the amount of oil decomposed is accurate. My idea is to take a small amount of soil and mix it with equal parts water. Then use a nitrate strip test in order to determine the amount of nitrogen in the soil. I'm using this to measure how much oil is in the soil because I've read many studies which say when soil is contaminated with oil the nitrogen levels rise significantly. So I would tests the amount of nitrogen in the oil contaminated soil before putting in the mushrooms and again after the mushrooms have grown and sat long enough to decompose oil. If there is a change in the nitrogen level then the mushrooms have decomposed some of the oil in the soil. Would this method work?

Thanks so much!
koneill18
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Re: Measuring how well pink oyster mushrooms can decompose oil in soil

Post by koneill18 »

Hi there!

This sounds like a really interesting project! Since you don’t have a reference for how much oil to add to the soil, it would a good idea to test several different concentrations. As an example, you could test 1%, 2.5%, and 5% contamination in your 12 ounce samples. You can try any values that you’d like, but I think below 10% is a good place to start. Make sure you have a soil sample with no oil in it to use as your negative control.

You’re correct in that the oil will influence many soil parameters like pH, nitrogen, and phosphorous levels. Using nitrogen test strips should work to measure nitrogen levels in the soil. However, keep in mind that the mushrooms themselves will likely alter nitrogen levels in the soil as well, even without any oil present. You could test for this by measuring nitrogen levels in a soil sample that has mushrooms but no oil. As you said, you would also have to measure nitrogen levels in oil contaminated soil with no mushrooms. This helps you figure out how the mushrooms and the oil independently affect nitrogen levels.

As an alternative, instead of measuring nitrogen levels, it might be interesting to try to grow plants in your different soil samples and use that as a readout for oil contamination in the soil. The oil contamination will alter your soil conditions, which in turn should affect plant growth. You would hypothesize that plants will grow better in the soil that has less oil in it. You can assess plant health by recording things like the height of the plant, root length, number of leaves, color of the leaves, etc. This could be a cool way of figuring out if the mushrooms actually make contaminated soil more friendly to plant growth. But that’s just a suggestion. It’s totally up to you and your goals for the project!

I hope this helps!
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