Mushroom hunting the perfect social distancing sport
A week of soggy spring weather may have given rise to intense cabin fever, but its timing has also given rise to spring mushrooms. Fungi, thriving just beneath the soil surface, have been waiting for conditions to ripen before they send up their biologic beacons, in hopes of spreading their genes far and wide.
Fanatic foragers have been waiting for those fruiting bodies and “open season” of mushrooming.
Fungus need abundant moisture to decompose organic material and to grow their iconic fruiting bodies. When it rains, mushrooms sprout from an immense underground hyphae network, dependent on the moisture to disseminate spores. A1998 journal publication in Mycologia by Nicholas P. Money examined exactly how far flung spores can be. An energyefficient, “surface tension catapult” launches spores at 25,000 G’s — more than enough energy to chuck them into air currents, where they are lifted into the atmosphere and distributed far and wide. In 1935, Charles Lindbergh collected fungal spores at an elevation of 35,000 feet, but in modern times spores have been found in the upper stratosphere at upward of 70,000 feet.
According to Colorado’s Food Safety Center of Excellence, of the 300 edible species of mushrooms, 30 have been domesticated. Of those,10 species are grown commercially. Of the food crops grown in the U.S., mushrooms are the most sustainable requiring less water and land. The Mushroom Council website states 1million pounds of mushrooms can be grown on1 acre of land each year.
Seasonal foragers across the U.S. set out each spring to find a handful of highly prized and delicious species. Among them: golden chanterelles, oyster and hen of the woods. If you start looking you’ll find a bounty. But of all these spring beauties, the morel is the most coveted and the most fleeting. They pop up for a few weeks each spring. I was spurred to research and write about them after seeing pictures of a few friends’ finds laid out on a table like treasure from the forest floor.
Most foragers have a proclivity for morel hunting because they’re easily identifiable and mouth watering- especially cooked up in butter, garlic and wild ramps. I spoke with Jeremy Busam, a resident of Clifton Forge, about his affair with foraging, which for him began in 2009. He shared, "They say first is always the hardest to find. I was unsuccessful for years, but I think the thrill of the chase rivals the taste. They can be tricky — different colors, shapes and sizes even among the same species.” He advised me morel spots are so coveted that it’s unlikely anyone will share theirs. “I love hunting them because it’s one of the first activities you get to do in the spring — like an adult Easter egg hunt. You get to watch the woods come to life after a long winter, finding and eating morels is just a bonus.”
Morels are in peak season and if you are willing to drive a few hours, mushroom hunting makes the perfect social distancing sport that you can safely share with family and a limited number of friends. Be sure any mushrooms found have been identified with certainty before eating, as there are many poisonous look-alikes.
Cap shape, color, whether a ’shroom has gills or pores, spore color and stem characteristics can all be used to ensure the safety of an edible mushroom. Check out National Audubon Society’s Field Guide to Mushrooms or Mushrooms of the Southeast by Todd F. Elliott and Steven L. Stephenson for compact and color guides to our native species — edible or otherwise.
In Full Bloom is a weekly feature from Allissa Bunner that focuses on sustainable gardening, environmental stewardship and related community news and initiatives. Bunner is a Norfolk resident who is passionate about plants — especially natives — and enjoys growing things from seed. She can be reached at acbinfullbloom@gmail.com.