Semi-Automated Mushroom Production

Dr. Chris Cornelison and Dr. Kyle Gabriel of the BioInnovation Laboratory in the College of Science and Mathematics are using innovative technology to expand the opportunities for mushroom production in unlikely places such as urban environments and nonarable lands.

Dr. Cornelison, lab director and assistant professor of microbiology, and Dr. Gabriel, a research scientist in the BioInnovation Laboratory, conceived a plan to build a low-cost, small-footprint prototype of an semi-automated mushroom production facility that could be easily set up and utilized anywhere, even densely populated areas.

Thanks to a Georgia Department of Agriculture grant, the current version of the production process is taking place in a shipping container at the KSU Field Station, a 25-acre property two miles from the Kennesaw campus. Dr. Gabriel designed the embedded environmental control system with software he developed, Mycodo, which can autonomously monitor and regulate the growing conditions for mushrooms – temperature, humidity, and carbon dioxide concentrations.