Mycelial growth of wood fungus Ganoderma sessile in porous scaffolds

The mycelium of filamentous wood fungi exhibits adaptive growth strategies influenced by their host material. In 2D solid-state fermentation, densely packed substrates limit oxygen access, resulting in hyphal growth mainly at the substrate-air interface. To address this challenge, we investigated open porous scaffolds as growth environments for the filamentous fungus Ganoderma sessile , quantifying mycelial biomass formation via ergosterol content. This quantitative approach directly demonstrates a scaffold-associated biomass increase of 60% after 7 days compared to plate cultures and thus provides experimental evidence linking increased accessible surface area in porous substrates to enhanced biomass formation in solid-state fungal growth. Mycelium colonization of the hydrogel scaffold also enhanced their mechanical properties, including stiffness and elastic recovery.This scaffold-associated biomass increase was not observed for G. lucidum or P. ostreatus , underscoring a species-specific effect with ergosterol levels for G.sessile peaking at 2 wt% malt extract in the substrate, in contrast to both higher and lower malt extract concentrations. These findings improve our understanding of solid-state fermentation, highlight the importance of species-specific responses and guide the design of substrates for fungi-based materials with tailored properties.