What do you get when you cross a couple of eco-minded California surfers with a team of sustainability-focused New York scientists? A whole lot of innovation and experimentation鈥攁nd a surfboard made from mushrooms.
You won鈥檛 find El Portobello in your nearest surf shop just yet. Mira Loma鈥揵ased (SurfO) produced the first prototype of the mushroom board in May 2014. It鈥檚 still in development;聽SurfO co-founders David Purser and Daniel Del Toro estimate it will be at least a year before the board is market ready.聽
Why the wait? Because these boards are grown and hand-shaped from a natural, living substance never before tested in a surfboard. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a total niche market,鈥� Purser says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really hard to break into the business of manufacturing surfboards unless you鈥檙e doing something really unique. This is the most organic, eco-friendly model there is.鈥�
The material, called Myco Foam, is the brainchild of New York鈥揵ased , a company that combines mycelium (the white, gluelike,聽branching part of fungus that absorbs nutrients) with organic farm waste to develop sustainable alternatives to toxic petrochemicals that are found in many plastics and insulations鈥攁nd in traditional surfboards.聽
鈥淚t starts as a bag of mulch like you鈥檇 buy at the hardware store,鈥� co-founder David Purser says. 鈥淭hen the mushroom eats the mulch. The strength comes from the mushroom binding with that material.鈥�
鈥淲e are a material-science company that solves problems,鈥� says Gavin McIntyre, co-founder and chief scientist at Ecovative. 鈥淭he current problem: Our surroundings are encapsulated by packaging and construction materials. So we are literally growing those materials instead.鈥�
Here鈥檚 how it works. Ecovative provides a 聽kit that consists of dehydrated-mushroom materials. Individuals and businesses can purchase the kit to experiment with a wide range of applications, from beehives to sculptures to surf blanks. To rehydrate the dry mixture, just add water. The mycelium begins to act like a glue, hardening as it grows, and consumes the organic material.聽
In SurfO鈥檚 case, the mushroom mixture gets packed into a carefully designed surfboard-shaped mold. The material grows for up to 10 days as the mycelium starts to digest the agricultural material. Once the board comes out of the mold, it goes into a dryer to solidify and harden. It鈥檚 then聽laminated with a to finish it off.聽
鈥淚t starts as a bag of mulch like you鈥檇 buy at the hardware store and put around your plants,鈥� Purser says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 hemp, stems, cornstalks, and other organic waste material. Then the mushroom eats the mulch. The strength comes from the mushroom binding with that material.鈥�
Sounds simple enough, but the science is far from perfect. For starters, there鈥檚 capacity.聽
Right now, SurfO is painstakingly crafting one board a month, with a 30 percent success rate. 鈥淯ntil recently, we鈥檝e been doing it out of my garage in Redondo Beach,鈥� Purser says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 super-vulnerable to outside environmental conditions. But we鈥檙e branching out into a bigger 鈥榞arage鈥� in the desert. What we need is one small, perfectly set聽up, environmentally controlled room with the right equipment.鈥� The pair is hoping to revive a neglected campaign to purchase another mold and the proper lab tools so they can grow more than one board at a time.聽
The board is also too heavy聽by a couple pounds聽to be competitive with today鈥檚 high-performance models. To date, SurfO has sold two boards, for the聽hefty price tag of $1,700 each. 鈥淩ight now, it surfs more like a board from the 鈥�60s or 鈥�70s,鈥� Purser says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 more like buying a wood board.鈥�
While SurfO refines the process to bring the board closer to the ideal range of seven to ten pounds, the technology has proven itself on a smaller scale. Recently, SurfO has begun producing handplanes from mushroom materials鈥攁 niche others have already successfully marketed. For example, offers a range of mushroom handplanes鈥攇rown with Ecovative materials鈥攖hrough Patagonia.聽
In the end, can El Portobello ever be a legit surfing contender? For the most part, trade experts like the nonprofit founder and scientist Kevin Whilden support the concept, albeit cautiously.聽
鈥淭he mushroom technology is brilliant,鈥� he says. 鈥淏ut there鈥檚 quite a bit of R&D to be done. Surfboard shaping with foam [traditional material] is one of the most technical applications of foam out there. The sculpting is like fine art. And they鈥檙e trying to do it with mushrooms. There鈥檚 so little known about how the different mushroom strains work.鈥�
From a surf foundation that pioneered the first sustainable labeling and verification system for the industry, it鈥檚 not a bad prognosis. The SurfO team is so optimistic that they鈥檝e started early prototyping of snowboards and skateboards. 鈥淲e鈥檝e had a couple of pros ride [El Portobello],鈥� Purser says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 strong, rides choppy water really well, and it鈥檚 flexible. If it were the same weight as a regular surfboard, it would dominate.鈥�