ABSTRACT
When in the early 1990s many East German 1ignite-, tar-and petroleum-processing facilities were closcd and dismantled, research in the field of biological soil remediation was at a temporary hiatus. Therefore, two working teams experienced in the soil-based openair farming of wood-and straw-degrading edible fungi were entrusted with studies on the degradation of PAH and TNT in factory court soils. Outdoor growth of wood-degrading fungi was initiated by Luthardt in 1945 [I]. Fungi arc commonly grown on inoculated, cylindrical leafwood stem sections, usually up to 70 cm in diameter and 30-40 em long, that have been vertically inserted into farmyard soils with interspaces of 15-30 cm [2]. The mycclia of K. mutabilis and P ostreatus grow 10-25 em into the soi I surrounding the timber block, thereby colonizing the soil completely to a depth of 35-45 em with a fleshy, white mycelium, which gradually degenerates after 2-3 years but persists in the wood blocks for 4-7 years. More extensive soil mycelia are formed by the wood-degrading basidiomycete H. fasciculare and the straw-degrading S. rugosa annulata. Due to their production of extracellular ligninolytic oxidoreductase enzymes in liquid culture [3,41 and in unsterile soil [5], enzymes shown to be significant to the degradation of aromatic xenobiotics [6-11], these cultivated fungi were subjected to laboratory-scale and open-air tests to degrade PAH and TNT in soils [12-151.
