Hunting Mushrooms, and What Makes Some Glow in the Dark | Hacker News Reader

Hunting Mushrooms, and What Makes Some Glow in the Dark

nytimes.com

55 pointsDrScump28 comments

> Unless you want your ’shrooms to turn into slime, bring wax paper or a paper bag, never plastic.

It doesn't really matter if you're only out in the woods for a couple hours, rather than being out for days at a time harvesting commercially or whatever. The reusable bags made by Baggu are pretty good because they hold 40 lbs, are breathable, and you can just throw them in the washing machine. The only downside is that they're $10 each unless you buy them wholesale.

As the article says, the best way to learn is to join your local club and go on the weekly walks. And if you want to buy a book, don't buy a field guide. Instead buy a picture book that covers a handful of your local species, e.g.:

https://www.amazon.com/Mushrooming-without-Fear-Beginners-Co...

https://www.amazon.com/100-Edible-Mushrooms-Michael-Kuo/dp/0...

https://www.amazon.com/Fascinating-Fungi-England-Lawrence-Mi...

It's pretty easy to learn, if you start going on walks in the spring and go every other weekend throughout the year, then you'll know most of the edibles mushrooms throughout the year. Plus the poisonous ones, the other notable ones, and maybe even some of the psychoactive ones.

What about mesh bags? Last time I went mushroom hunting in the wilds of a French wood, repleat with boar hides and beer bottle infested mini camp sites, my guide used mesh bags because he said that allowed spores to escape. The locals though stuck to supermarket plastic bags.

That’s true, it’s not clear to what extent spores are the limiting factor though.

Mushroom foraging is quite popular where I live. Free, organic, protein-rich nutrition in abundance from the local forest. But it's a delicate hobby: knowing between the species is a matter of life & death.

For example, destroying angel is a common, fatally hepatoxic all-white cap. So the rule is you never pick any white mushrooms at all; chance of misidentification is just not worth the risk.

But for example chanterelle is very delicious and there are really no toxic mushrooms that look even remotely like it. So anyone can forage for the chanterelle. It is heavenly in risottos and pastas.

Mushrooms provide very little macro nutrients:

https://www.nutritionvalue.org/Mushrooms%2C_raw%2C_Chanterel...

~9 grams of macros per 100 grams of mushroom. Just a little better than leafy greens.

You are looking at the nutritional values before boiling down. 90% of fresh chanterelles is just water. After normal processing (boiling most of the water away), the nutritional ratio of proteins vs carbs is actually superior to eg. chick pea:

https://fineli.fi/fineli/en/elintarvikkeet/34535

https://fineli.fi/fineli/en/elintarvikkeet/31218

Right, foraging for water isn't a great way to get protein, that was more my point than whether they are a sensible thing to eat once you have them.

Well, chanterelles grow in spots and a good spot can yield 10-20 kg worth of mushrooms, which is about 1-2kg worth of beef in protein from a work of a few hours. The trick is just knowing the good spot - they can be closely guarded family secrets.

Jack-o'-lanterns can look similar to chanterelles

Well, my point exactly. That poisonous false chanterelle seems to be non existent in North Europe, so chanterelle is considered safe to pick for amateurs here. But I would never dare pick mushrooms abroad without a local guide.

Came here to say this. Had a massive and I mean massive amount of mushrooms in my yard. Turned out the they were Jack-o-lanterns despite what my coworker thought.

When in the US or elsewhere where landowners can decide who can do what on a piece of land, how do you know where you can go picking berries or mushrooms? Do you check a map for some indication that a certain piece of land is "public" rather than privately owned? (Some countries have a right of access to any land meaning anyone is allowed to walk/pick berries/mushrooms etc on any land regardless of who owns it).

Wildlife Management Areas are a great place to start. State and federal parks too. I’m syre there are plenty of walking trails if you are near a major city.

Private landowners are pretty good about marking boundaries where public meets private.

Trespassing laws often require notification, so they are pretty good about posting notification. They aren't really doing anyone a favor.

(Michigan requires notification, with the exception of land clearly being used for agriculture, which does not require notification)

But yeah, there is lots of public land.

I recently saw a video on YouTube and I think it was Michigan. It was about lakes and hunting rules if your property or public property touches the lake. They were saying you have about 5-10 feet to hunt around any lake even if it’s not the side you own or public land touches.

I’m not sure it’s like this in Georgia. Interesting though.

There are substantial access provisions for "navigable waters", I would take some convincing to believe this includes hunting adjacent to lakes.

This document discusses it pretty well I guess:

https://dspace.nmc.edu/bitstream/handle/11045/10614/Public-A...

(It's focused on tribal fishing and hunting rights but covers public access nicely; just skip all the quoted text to get an overview)

In the video it was a guy trapping by the high tide line of a lake. A land owner was harassing him. Hunter called the game warden and when the landowner came back he got a ticket for harassing a hunter. Basically you can hunt/fish all around a lake if you have permission on a piece of property that touches the water. There’s a certain amount of feet from the water you can legally be in.

You meant trapping but said hunting which is technically true, but makes people think of shooting instead.

Very little map checking. People generally know where public land is, as it is typically some sort of park or rec area.

Otherwise, land is mostly considered private and you stay off unless you have approval of the owner.

Been mushroom hunting for over 30 years. And you can definitely use plastic bags, just don't leave them in the car for long and when you get home, put them in a basket in refrigerator. Nothing wrong with plastic bags when going mushroom hunting.

plastic bags don't allow the spore to fall out on the ground as you carry them, get a mesh mushroom hunting bag so future generations can keep enjoying mushrooms. I make a route in some places I hunt and years later I find mushrooms all along my route, I like to think I propagated them.

Do you have a citation for that?

An individual mushroom produces millions of spores, but in a stable population, on average only one spore produces another mature mushroom. I'd be very surprised if mushroom populations are limited by the dispersal of spores.

This isn't quite accurate. A spore needs to unite with another spore of the opposite sex to create mycelium [0]. Environmental conditions dictate when the mycelium will develop a mushroom body to start the reproduction cycle over again.

I can't speak to whether or not plastic bags completely prevents spores from falling to the ground, but I agree with lumberingjack's sentiment about using a mesh bag to increase the odds of successful propagation. Mushrooms continue to drop spores even after they are picked. Taking spore prints of harvested mushrooms is one way enthusiasts create strains of their own.

[0] - https://radicalmycology.com/educational-tools/mushrooms-101/...

Nope read it in a book once and then talked about it with my grandpa. When he was a kid he would collect morels then put them in a potato bag and swing it around in the horse/cow pasture. He said he had great success and the morels would pop up on cow patties and near streams in the pasture for years after that when none had been there before.

Don't use plastic bags.

It's forbidden by law in Europe simply because it will prevent the spores to drop.

Use a wooden basket instead.

Do you have a citation for those laws? Couldn't find any German law off hand, though plenty of people agree that it's a bad idea. Maybe there are such laws in other European countries?

I don't know exactly how to find it, I am pretty sure I've heard that on TV some time ago.

However in Italy, for instance, the Legge 352/1993[1] says explicitly to use proper "containers" in order to favour the spores' spreading.

That's a generic normative then local authorities could rule other details on harvesting and selling them.

- [1] http://www.salute.gov.it/imgs/C_17_normativa_1787_allegato.p...

don't eat if you not sure what kind of mushroom it is

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