Where, When and How to Pick Mushrooms
Where? In the forest, sometimes in a meadow or pasture – a mycologist or an experienced mushroom picker would say. Some forests have more, others fewer; only the picker's own individual experience is the best adviser. When you go out mushroom picking, do not look for an all-knowing adviser, and do not turn to a psychic or a fortune-teller. It will not help. You will hardly find a kind-hearted adviser. Only experience, intuition, and perhaps sometimes a prophetic dream are the best advisers.
A balanced amount of moisture and warmth is the guarantee of mushroom growth. And when mushrooms are growing, even an inexperienced picker will always find more or fewer of them. The best time of day for mushroom picking is early morning, when the forest is still damp and cool, when glistening drops of water fall from branches or leaves, exposing shiny, slimy mushroom caps. Refreshed by the morning dew, mushrooms are juicier, firmer, and perhaps even easier to spot than in the sunlit litter later in the day. In the morning even the smallest mound of earth covered with leaves will stop you, make you look around, and not infrequently delight you with a handsome cep hiding a few steps away, rising from under the leaves or moss. If damp and warm, but not too hot, weather has set in for a longer time and the nights are not cold, mushrooms grow in old and young, dense and sparse forests alike.
If it is rather dry and cold, even though there is enough moisture, it is better to look for them in the forest thicket and not to worry too much about a small haul. Mushrooms do not like such weather.
If there are mushrooms at the market, it is a sign that it is time to go mushroom picking, to spend time in the forest and enjoy its bounty. The market is a fairly good barometer of the mushroom season. Of course, in May and even in early June one should not rush into the forest, because the mycelium, except in rare years, has not yet grown strong enough to produce many mushrooms. At this time mushroom picking is not advisable (just as fishing during fish spawning or hunting during the birds' nesting period); the vegetative mycelium is growing intensively, preparing for the future harvest, and one should not yet trample the litter or step on a mushroom's "head". Misty, damp weather is the most suitable for mushrooms to grow and for picking them.
How to dress? As lightly and comfortably as possible. A mushroom picker dressed in waterproof clothing, wearing high-topped footwear and definitely wrapped in a headscarf or wearing a hat, will feel more comfortable crawling about and bending under branches, walking among the bushes, searching for the mysterious habitats of mushrooms. Pick only mushrooms you know well, and preferably only into wooden or plastic baskets. Plastic or metal buckets and plastic bags should not be used, because mushrooms contain a lot of water and are also damp on the outside, so after a few hours in such containers they heat up faster, get maggoty, lose their good appearance, a lot of bacteria appear in them and their nutritional value declines.
Should you pull up or cut a mushroom? The mushroom is cut right at the ground or carefully pulled out, but not broken off. If the cap is broken off, bacteria and other microorganisms quickly attack the damaged part of the stem, spoiling not only it but also the vegetative mycelium at its base. Still, it is better to cut the mushroom, and this method is more widespread, because you can see at once whether the mushroom is sound or maggoty. The small part of the stem left in the litter poses no danger to the vegetative mycelium. In addition, cleaner mushrooms go into the basket.
It is advisable for the mushroom picker to walk with the sun behind them on a sunny day, as the mushrooms are then easier to see in the sunlit litter, and to touch the branches of trees and shrubs as little as possible and not to wade through wet grassy places, where mushrooms do not always grow, because spiders, flies, bugs and especially ticks lurk there more often, as well as some other midges waiting for prey or simply hidden insects.
Ticks, which frighten us most and are, moreover, quite dangerous, are most fond of young, grassy aspen groves, clearings and thickets of raspberries and nettles; they are found even in pastures. They usually settle on the leaves and stems of grasses or on shrubs (at a height of 25 cm – 1 m) growing beside little roads and paths where it is easier for a small animal to run through or for a mushroom or berry picker to pass.
It is not advisable to pick mushrooms in forests closer than 300–500 m from major highways and roads, where passing cars emit a lot of lead, chromium, nickel, cobalt and other pollutants, a considerable part of which is absorbed by mushrooms. In forests sprayed with arboricides, mushroom picking, as well as gathering berries or medicinal herbs, is permitted only after 10 months. Where forests have been sprayed with arboricides, a warning sign must always be posted. In the forest, the mushroom picker must be not only careful but also attentive, and must not lose their bearings under the spell of the forest and the mushrooms. That is why it is very useful for a mushroom picker to know a few things:
• pick for food only mushrooms you know well that are not maggoty or old; do not risk your own health or that of your family, good friends or neighbours; • it is dangerous to pick and eat mushrooms frozen by several successive frosts, in which protein breakdown has begun and amines and amides – poisonous substances – have formed; • you must not press a dubious opinion about one mushroom or another on another mushroom picker; • mushroom picking is not permitted in strict nature reserves, or in the strictly protected areas of national parks and other protected sites; • do not pick mushrooms that are protected – listed in the Red Data Book of Lithuania; • do not pull up a cep whose cap is less than 1.5 cm in diameter, or a chanterelle under 1 cm;• you must not destroy the forest litter, which is home not only to mushrooms but also to other small forest animals;• it is not advisable to pick mushrooms along roadsides, highway verges or near railways, because the mushrooms growing there have accumulated far more pollutants than those growing in a forest 200–500 m away or farther; • it has been established that mushrooms accumulate 4–5 times or more radioactive caesium than plants. The source of lead, cadmium, nickel, chromium and caesium is the forest litter, while arsenic, manganese and iron accumulate deeper in the substrate, but all of them are accessible to mushrooms; • more susceptible to pollutants are the gypsy mushroom, the bay bolete, the lelijinė stirnabudė, the common honey fungus and the birch knight. In parboiled mushrooms the pollutants are reduced by half, if the water is poured off; • after pulling up a mushroom, you must clean the earthy part of the stem thoroughly so that it does not dirty the other mushrooms you have gathered; moreover, humus-rich soil may contain the bacteria that cause botulism (Clostridium botulinum); • do not believe the advice that mushrooms growing on stumps, snags or windthrown trees are supposedly poisonous – this is not true: the honey fungi (the common honey fungus, the sheathed woodtuft, the velvet shank), the oyster mushroom and some scalycaps are tasty mushrooms; • do not believe the claim that all young mushrooms are edible, because the death cap, the blushing (Patouillard's) fibrecap, the livid pinkgill and other poisonous mushrooms are many times more poisonous when young than when old; • sometimes the press, radio or television, seeking popularity, present dubious or even completely false impressions of one mushroom picker or another; for example, the radio reports that edible truffles have been found somewhere in the Šakiai district (or perhaps they were some hart's truffles, false truffles or even poisonous earthballs), or that 3000 ceps were found on a plot of one are (perhaps they were some slippery jacks). Conditions in Lithuania seem too harsh for the truffle to grow, and finding so many ceps on a small plot is unbelievable. Such information should not be given to the public without consulting mycologists; • when preparing to go mushroom picking, especially in unfamiliar forests, do not forget a compass, which will help a great deal if you get lost. On arriving in the forest, always memorise the name of the nearest settlement or forest; • a forest compartment post, especially one standing at the intersection of compartments, is the best sign for someone who is lost to get their bearings: the smallest number is on the north side. Standing facing this number, you will know that on your right is west, on your left is east, and behind you is north; • while picking mushrooms it is advisable to check the exposed parts of your body every 2 hours, and after returning from the forest – your whole body; in addition, quickly change into other clothes in a non-residential room, and shake out the clothes you have taken off and dry them in the corridor or hallway, hung away from other clothes or footwear being worn; • if a tick has attached itself, do not smear it with either kerosene or grease – this will only make it harder to pull out. After removing it, the bite site is dabbed with alcohol, eau de cologne or iodine; if you suspect the tick may be infected, put it in a small bottle and see a doctor.