WHERE TO FIND BOTTLES? WHERE DOES IT GROW?
And then I’ll go to the forest, but I’m afraid I’ll only find mushrooms in the baskets of people I know.
– Because you need to know which forest you are going to. If you go near Warsaw, there are completely different forests there than here in my country, in the mountains, where there are clay soils. In central Poland, they are sandy, so higher humidity is needed than in the mountains for these mushrooms to appear. In Mazovia, you don’t even need to wait for the rains to calm down. There will be mushrooms there too.
What mushrooms should you pick to avoid poisoning?
— I would encourage people who know nothing about mushrooms to collect only those that have tubes on the bottom, called sponges or pillows. These are mushrooms of the Boletus family, none of which are fatally poisonous. They grow in very different forests, so if you try hard, you will find them. And in weather like this, there will be a lot of them. Brown bolete, common bolete, grainy bolete, bolete. These occur mainly in pine forests, but also in mixed forests. Chanterelle, or edible pepper, also occurs there and you will probably recognize this mushroom. Also, I would recommend leaving the gill mushrooms to experienced and experienced pickers. And certainly people with little experience should avoid mushrooms with greenish caps – from light green, through olive, to very dark and dirty green. They can be a deadly threat.
I walk around and see only blueberry bushes.
— You should choose parts of the forest that are not covered with grass and other low plants. Look for smooth cover with pine needles or moss. There will be many mushrooms there, because the turn of summer and autumn is the period when the largest number of different species grows.
WHAT IS THE BEST TIME FOR MUSHROOMS?
Is it one or 20 degrees Celsius?
— Temperature is the second most important factor, but less so than humidity, that activates the mycelium. Active mycelium bears fruit for about a month and produces two appearances, i.e. mushroom rashes, during the season, even if the weather is not very hot. Perhaps low temperatures are better, because fewer different mushroom-eating insects hatch at these temperatures. It is commonly believed that when it is cold there are no mushrooms. In fact, the mycelium enters the vegetation at +4 degrees Celsius. But we are talking about the underground temperature. It may be almost zero at night, but it is not so cold in the mycelium and it can bear fruit. The last boletus I found was seven years ago, on December 21.
So “my secret boletus spot” is a myth, because if the mycelium bears fruit randomly during a month, it’s hard to find that exact moment during the season?
— This is not a myth, because if the conditions are right, there are many mycelium in this place that interconnect and grow. One bears fruit earlier, the other later. If we pick a mushroom, nothing will grow in the same place this year – just like after we pick an apple from a branch. But next to it, from this or that mycelium, a fruit may grow. Therefore, in a secret place you can harvest for a long time, at different times of the season. But it can also happen that a good place will not become a good place next year.
Why?
— Because the mycelium is a living organism and needs to rest. I noticed that it produces abundant fruits every two years. In one case it produces a huge outpouring, in the other it is much smaller. It can bear fruit at this rate for about thirty years, constantly growing. For example, a boletus that lives in symbiosis with a pine tree can cover a large area. Mushrooms from the same mycelium can sometimes be found 20 meters apart.
Pay attention only to the litter?
– Not only that. Mushrooms live in symbiosis with trees. Mushroom atlases provide information about which tree a particular mushroom lives in symbiosis with, and this is a very important clue for those who are looking for it. The brown bolete, the golden bolete, the hare mushroom, the common bolete, the red bolete, the red bolete, the common bolete, the common bolete and the common bolete have a symbiosis with pine. Yellow butterwood with larch. And hornbeam boletes grow in symbiosis with hornbeam. Red bolete and plantain need birch. Net boletes have a symbiotic relationship with deciduous trees. All you need is an oak tree in a pine forest and you can find it. This tree must have been in the forest around the refugee center where the children were poisoned.
How do you know?
— Because the poisoning occurred with the greenish Cape fly agaric and it has a symbiotic relationship with deciduous trees.
There was no public information about the species of mushrooms the young men in Afghanistan ate.
— Yes, but only this mushroom causes the type of poisoning that requires a liver transplant. Damage to the organ can occur several hours after ingesting the mushroom or even after a few days. It depends a lot on the body. Children are more vulnerable because they have a lighter body structure and a faster metabolism. It also happens that in a dish prepared with a lot of mushrooms, only a few people will eat a piece of the poisonous one and only they will be poisoned.
How to avoid such a tragedy?
— Applying the simplest rule: if you have any doubts about a mushroom, do not take it, as it can ruin your life. A green fly agaric cap with a diameter of 10 to 15 centimeters can kill an entire family of four. Among the mushrooms with the aforementioned pads there are also poisonous ones, but none are fatal, none damage organs and, at most, cause gastric problems. There are only 12 species of these most dangerous mushrooms, which can lead to death, in Poland.
HOW TO RECOGNIZE IF A MUSHROOM IS EDIBLE? HOW TO DISTINGUISH A POISONOUS MUSHROOM FROM AN EDIBLE MUSHROOM?
A well-known method among mushroom pickers is to check whether the mushroom is edible by licking the cap underneath. If it tastes bitter, the mushroom is not suitable for consumption.
— I do not recommend it because you can be exposed to echinococcosis transmitted by wild animals, mainly foxes. And this embryo of an armed tapeworm can cause death even after about a dozen years. If someone does something like this, they should always rinse their mouth with cold water. When doing the so-called taste test of a mushroom with tubes, you can feel a bitter taste and this will mean that it is an inedible or slightly poisonous mushroom. The worst taste is bitter bile, terribly bitter. It was even used in medicine, a substance was extracted from it and replaced bile. And you definitely cannot taste test mushrooms with gills, because they are all deadly poisonous and tasty. I encourage you to always have a pocket atlas of mushrooms with you and read all the descriptions to the end so as not to miss any information about details that will allow you to distinguish similar mushrooms.
What could these details be?
— For example, the crested kite has a ring on its stem called a leg. It is very similar to that of many mushrooms. Only in the kite this ring is mobile, it can be moved like a wedding ring on a finger. And this is how it differs from the rings of mushrooms, where there is a permanently glued ring.
And how do you remove or cut mushrooms so as not to damage the mycelium?
— This is a common question, but I’ll surprise you: it doesn’t really matter to the mycelium. In sandy soils it’s very easy, just remove it carefully and you’re fine. In harder, clayey soils, it’s best to cut the mushroom just below the mycelium. In both cases, it’s a good idea to cover the area where the mushroom was removed with straw and step on it so that the sun doesn’t dry out the incredibly photosensitive mycelium.
It is said that it grows like mushrooms after the rain. How long does it take after the rain?
— Mushrooms grow quickly, especially at night. They like peace and quiet. The small and medium-sized mushrooms we find usually take a day to grow. In October 1999, I found a record boletus weighing 2.22 kg. It was spread throughout the media, and as a result, mycologist Professor Władysław Wojewoda looked at this boletus. He told me that it took 3-4 days for it to grow to this size. It was a slow growth, because this mushroom was located in a valley, it was covered by thick, uncut grass, under which it had a thermal cushion and was protected from the wind. Mushrooms also grow quickly. Sometimes you can find night mushrooms in a good place in the morning and another one in the same place in the afternoon. It all depends on the weather conditions.
WHAT TIME OF DAY IS BEST TO PICK MUSHROOMS?
It is often said that mushrooms have no nutritional value and are essentially useless to humans.
— This belief exists, but recent research shows that mushrooms are a good source of minerals: potassium, phosphorus and magnesium. The magnesium content in mushrooms is similar to that in fresh fruits and vegetables. In addition, they contain trace elements: copper, zinc, iron, manganese, molybdenum and selenium. But even more important for us are mushrooms as an element of the ecosystem. Living in symbiosis with trees, they support them in extracting nutrients from the soil, being an extension of the root system, they decompose decaying fallen branches, they produce nitrogen, supplying it to the air, they provide food for animals, and they provide water for animals in dry places. It is difficult to overestimate them. It is scientifically proven that if mushrooms disappeared from the earth, forests would die within 40 years, suffocating from their own vapors. Mushrooms are the second most essential organism in nature, after bees.
Maybe people should grow them?
— It is impossible to cultivate mycorrhizal fungi, that is, fungi that live in symbiosis with trees! There have been tests and none of them are suitable for cultivation. Man cannot do this. You can cultivate champignons or oyster mushrooms because they are saprophytic mushrooms and do not live in symbiosis.
And collecting is tiring and useless. Let’s leave these mushrooms in the forest.
— Mushroom picking is nothing but beneficial! We are outdoors, we move, we bend over, even the muscles in our fingers are activated when we pick or cut a mushroom and clean it. We put more weights in the baskets, so we are in the gym, only the air is better. Plus, it is a Polish tradition. We have the largest tradition of forest mushroom picking in the world. There is no other country in the world where people do it on such a scale.
Where did this come from?
– Out of poverty, sir. In the past, mushrooms were freely available food, then people began to collect them to sell, so they provided work, self-employment. Even today, there are people who make money selling mushrooms. But I must say here: selling on the road is illegal. Collected mushrooms can only be sold in places where there is a fresh mushroom sorter or a mushroom expert. The latter is a higher level of authorization that also allows the consumption of dried mushrooms. The picker does not need to know anything about mushrooms, but in order to sell them, he must have them examined by an expert who, upon accepting the mushrooms, guarantees that no one will be poisoned by them. Anyone who eats mushrooms without this verification risks his life.
