Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption
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wipka84
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If you picked mushrooms...before knowing what they were to take a spore print are you willfully damaging the wildlife.
If i cut mushrooms off to take a spore print and put them in a basket with holes (ie wicker), am I causing damage. Or am i helping. Mushrooms release spores, which in theory should escape through the basket spreading them. By cutting the myclelium isnt damaged so is there any harm.
I thought i'd ask as am seeing more and more mushrooms around, at least ten noticably different varieties in a short walk through woods. i wouldnt want to take or attempt to identify without a spore print so is there any harm in what i am considering.
Any views greatly appreciated.
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cab
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Definitely use a basket to help distribute spores.
If you encounter one unknown example of an unknown then leave it be. If you encounter many then take one for ID, doing so carefully to avoid damaging the mycelium.
Does it matter? Picking a mushroom is more like taking an apple from a tree than uprooting a plant. If done with respect and care then it isn't a problem. Use your noggin, and you'll do no harm.
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Jamanda
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As long as you aren't taking all of them it's fine. The bulk of the fungi is under ground as mycelium anyway, the mushroom is just the fruiting body, so it's akin to picking a flower or a fruit off a tree.
It's the people who report taking tens of kilos of things that worry me.
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cab
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| Jamanda wrote: | | It's the people who report taking tens of kilos of things that worry me. |
Its how much you take relative to what is there that matters. I've no problems at all harvesting tens of kilos of chicken of the woods some years here (although I don't, I harvest as much as we can use, which ain't that much). I could pick that much and there would still be plenty left.
Weekend gone I'd say we picked two good full baskets of mixed shrooms; several kilos. Each and every one was a common species, and each one was picked carefully from sites we use year in, year out. I've got no interest in ruining any of my patches or harming the places we forage in any way.
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wipka84
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Thats great as that was what I hoped!
I dont want to ruin anything, and would take one and then only if there were at least a few, for spore printing and then returning to the spot if i could get a positive ID.
Thanks for your advice.
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nettie
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Hi, reading the above I would like to add that I think it depends whether you are ever intending to eat the mushrooms that you find. If not, and you are just curious to get a possible ID then just cutting them will be fine. If you do intend to eat them, however, there are things in the base of the stem that need to be looked at.
If you are picking a shroom to ID it for possible consumption, I would say that it's really important to gently ease out the whole mushroom rather than cutting it. Often there are clues in the base of the stem that help you to establish whether the shroom is edible, or whether it is poisonous. For example there are some agaricus that turn yellow at the base of the stem when cut lengthways, and are not to be eaten. Also some mushrooms have a sort of bag at the bottom of the stem and mostly hidden in the earth called a volva, which is particular to the mostly highly poisonous Amanita shrooms.
There are also some mushrooms that are fat at the base; some that are thin; some that turn funny colours just at the bottom, and some that appear to have roots. All of these things can be as helpful in a correct ID as a spore print.
Once you can be 100% sure of your ID of the mushroom in its entirety, stem and all, any further edible pickings can be cut rather than pulled, if of course it's your intention to eat your findings!
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colour it green
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i spose you should also think about who's land it is. a farmer neighbour of ours was struggling financially, and having gone to the effort of getting organic status, successfully sold the mushrooms in his field to a well known organic box scheme. but unfortinately someone went in and helped themselves a day before they were due to be taken.
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