One of the most famous mushroom experts in Russia, Mikhail Vishnevsky, came to Komsomolskaya Pravda radio to tell what to expect from the mushroom season in 2017 in Moscow and the Moscow region [radio broadcast]

Mikhail Vishnevsky, founder of the `Mushroom Mesto` store, candidate of biological sciences, mycologist and author of books about mushrooms in Russia, in the editorial office of Komsomolskaya Pravda. Photo: Ivan MAKEEV

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"SOMETHING TERRIBLE IS GOING UNDER THE GROUND"

- Now in the forests of mushrooms there are offensively few ...

This year the weather is unique. In May and June it was almost winter. And as a result, in July, mushrooms of various types began to grow at the same time - I don’t remember that! , they did not understand what was happening with the weather and assumed that autumn had already begun ...

Where to pick mushrooms in the suburbs in 2017

But all of them did not grow massively and not abundantly. Alas, the grass grows better this year. In fact, many people, looking at how healthy and plentiful the grass grows, rejoice, they think that mushrooms will be trampled after it. So, nothing like that! Mushrooms with grass are malicious competitors who cannot stand each other.

- The spring was cold, but now it is warm and it rains periodically. Isn't this the perfect weather for mushrooms?

Yes and no. In fact, now a mycelium is developing with might and main underground: it’s just terrible going on there, it rushes in all directions, spreads its threads, and it feels very good! That's just fruiting bodies - what we collect in the forest - do not form. This requires a sharp change in conditions: either a sharp warming, or a sharp cooling, and at the same time - a decrease in humidity. This will lead to the fact that tiny fruiting bodies will be laid on the mycelium. And if this abrupt change in climate lasts at least a few days - two, three, and preferably five - then in two weeks the mushrooms will develop to the desired size, and we will get a more or less distinct harvest. But so far there have been no conditions for this. And the mushroom pickers released one or two mushrooms instead of the fifteen or twenty we wanted ...

Still, I hope that around the first decade of September we will see mushrooms in the forest. But there will not be as many of them as last year, which, of course, was very successful.

HOW MUSHROOMS GET OUT OF GREENHOUSES

- What mushrooms are now growing in the cities?

Classic urban mushrooms that always grow are a variety of champignons and dung beetles. Their advantage is that they do not need a tree. Most mushrooms, whether white, camelina or oiler, are mycorrhizal, they necessarily enter into a symbiosis with oak, some with birch, some with some other tree. And champignons and dung beetles have enough moderately moist nutrient soil - they are ready to climb even on the lawn, even to make their way out from under the asphalt ... That is why champignons can be artificially cultivated. And many urban champignons literally fled from the greenhouses where they were grown: someone threw the peels or spoiled mushrooms that were not suitable for sale into the street - but they took root.

Another group of edible mushrooms are those that are brought into the city along with seedlings and lawn soil. It can be all sorts of interesting rows and talkers. Together with tree seedlings, russulas, milkers are brought, some kind of wave, or even saffron milk, can easily grow near the house!

But it must be borne in mind that mushrooms tend to absorb all sorts of muck. All mushroom pickers know that near highways - and there are a lot of cars in cities - it’s definitely not worth picking them up.

- And if we take the Moscow forests, like Losiny Ostrov or Bitsevsky Park?

They have an interesting situation. For many decades, noble mushrooms - white, boletus, boletus, chanterelles - generally disappeared from Moscow. That is, they hid: the mycelium existed, but ceased to bear fruit. But, apparently, now something has changed with the ecological situation, or maybe mushrooms have adapted to the urban environment ... After all, we now have starlings wintering in the city, rooks that do not fly away to warmer climes - this was not the case before. So the whites with chanterelles, apparently, understood something for themselves, and now they are bearing fruit again in the city.

This year, Russian white truffles were unexpectedly found right in Moscow. I myself found one in Petrovsky Park, not far from the editorial office of KP.

It happens that a mushroom, which was considered rare, suddenly gives a powerful surge in numbers. For example, last year this happened to the purple cobweb listed in the Red Book. A very beautiful, luxurious mushroom, it is not often found - and suddenly it simply covered the entire European part of the country, the people carried it away from the forest with baskets. This happens once every 10-20 years with almost every type of mushroom. And in the generally lean 2017, this happened to Russian white truffles (they are also called Troitsk or Posad truffles). A lot of them. Moreover, they started growing earlier than expected - usually the season starts at the end of August, and here they appeared in mid-July ... This will be the year of truffles. Well, and also chanterelles, which are so unpretentious that they generally almost don’t care when to grow.

In principle, truffles have been growing on the territory of present-day Moscow for a very long time, many millennia. A hundred years ago, they were quietly collected on the territory of the city. They are not so difficult to find - they tend to protrude to the surface in about half of the cases, partially, or even almost entirely ... Just keep in mind that Russian white truffle is not the same as the delicacy Piedmontese or Perigord: it even belongs to another genus of mushrooms, although in Russian it is called the same, and outwardly very similar. European ones cost several thousand euros per kilogram and are valued because of their strong smell, like an exquisite seasoning. And our truffle is simply fried like porcini mushrooms or chanterelles, and its red price is two or three thousand rubles per kilogram. But you can surprise guests by saying "I fried a turkey with truffles!"

"MOSCOW REGION - IN THE GAP BETWEEN MUSHROOM PLACES"

There are also pigs, on which people rush when there are not very many mushrooms. They look quite presentable, they used to be actively eaten. And now they are considered poisonous ...

Or rather, deadly. The thin pig is not poisonous in the strict sense of the word, it cannot be poisoned, but it can cause a severe allergic reaction, in which the body will begin to destroy its own blood cells. And then - anemia, liver or kidney failure, and death ... Then the neighbors say: "Grandma died of the liver!" - and no one connects her illness with the fact that she ate pigs. Scientists generally understood this relatively recently. It is interesting that one person can eat pigs all his life, and the other will die after the third portion - everything is individual here. The risk group primarily includes those who have problems with immunity, ranging from AIDS to any allergies. But you can’t eat pigs for others either - you shouldn’t play this Russian roulette.

- A question around which there has been controversy for many years: is it better to cut or twist mushrooms?

This is a war of points and blunt points, as in Gulliver's Travels. The egg doesn't care which side to break it with a spoon. Once upon a time, there was no problem at all: porcini mushrooms were torn out of the soil, and milk mushrooms were broken because they had a fragile leg. Mushroom pickers picked up knives when mass procurement of canned mushrooms began, that is, in the 20s and 30s of the 20th century: with a knife, baskets are filled much faster ... In general, the question itself appeared around 1923: a certain comrade Regel, who engaged in the cultivation of champignons, published a brochure on how to properly collect them in greenhouses. There they really cannot be torn out of the soil - the substrate layer is broken, and this harms the development of the mycelium. But you can’t cut it either, because there remains a leg, which mushroom mosquitoes begin to infect. The only option is to carefully unscrew and fill the hole with earth. And this was picked up by other authors and extended to ordinary forest mushrooms ... Although the dispute is ridiculous - in the forest this does not affect the mycelium in any way.

By the way, there is an opinion that buying champignons grown in special conditions in stores is more “civilized” than picking mushrooms in the forest. Allegedly mushrooms from greenhouses are more environmentally friendly and safe.

It is a myth! Yes, some people think that the environment in nature is unfavorable, some kind of acid rain comes from the sky, and mushrooms absorb all this muck. Whether the matter is in the "sterile" champignon. But in fact, in greenhouses, mushrooms are grown on the same manure, soil or straw that was collected somewhere in the fields! And mushrooms are almost one hundred percent composed of what they grew on. So these are all such commercial la-la, which you should not listen to - in terms of their composition, cultivated mushrooms practically do not differ in any way from wild-growing analogues.

- The classic question: where to go for mushrooms? Let's hope they show up this year...

The Moscow region, unfortunately, lies in a certain gap between two mushroom peaks. If you look to the south, everything is in order with mushrooms in the Tula and Nizhny Novgorod regions. And in the north there is also beauty: Vladimirskaya, Tverskaya, Novgorodskaya ... And we are in some kind of middle place, where everything is smaller.

And yet in the Moscow region there are two pleasant directions. Firstly, to the south, towards Kashira, to where the forest-steppe begins - mushrooms are very fond of such places. Secondly, to the west, towards Zvenigorod, where there is a good climate, a lot of deciduous and even broad-leaved forests. And to the east, where Meshchera, swamps, mosquitoes, it makes sense to go mainly for oil. If you go north, then it’s better to get to Dubna or even to the Tver region.

In Russia, picking mushrooms is almost a national sport. According to statistics, every third inhabitant of our country goes into the forest with a basket in autumn. But if before the revolution in Russia there were up to 40 kg of mushrooms per capita per year, today only 3 kg. Why?

You are not looking there!

Mushrooms (especially high nutritional value - ceps, boletus, boletus) in the forest are not so easy to find. A full basket of mushrooms is collected by a few lucky ones, most of them leave the forest with russula and pigs.

- The main thing in "silent hunting" is to know mushroom places, - says Vera Mokeeva, PhD in Biology, researcher at the Department of Mycology and Alcology of the Faculty of Biology, Moscow State University - Mushrooms reproduce with the help of spores, which, when in favorable conditions, form a mycelium. From it, new mushrooms subsequently grow. Such myceliums remain in the soil for a long time, so experienced mushroom pickers remember the place where they once gathered a rich harvest, periodically visit there and do not tell anyone about the “place of mushroom power”.

How to find a mushroom place?

It is pointless to look for mushrooms in thick grass and in forest thickets. They usually grow in clearings, sunny glades and on the edges of forests, on moist but not damp soil. Some types of fungi - mycorrhiza-forming - are closely related to the root system of certain tree species (boletus, boletus), others - xylotrophs - with living or dead wood (honey mushrooms, oyster mushrooms) - and the older the tree, the more likely it is to find a mycelium under or on it .

It is known that the mushroom yield is a variable value. The fertility of mycelium depends on the weather. If the summer was hot and dry, there will be few mushrooms in the fall. A moderately warm and moderately rainy summer promises a rich mushroom harvest.

Take valuable

The mushroom picker is a sponge that absorbs all the muck from the environment.

“In most edible mushrooms, the mycelium is located near the soil surface and absorbs a large amount of moisture from the environment,” explains Candidate of Pharmaceutical Sciences Igor Sokolsky. “If the soil is contaminated with water-soluble xenobiotics, then they freely penetrate the fungi and can accumulate in quantities that make edible mushrooms inedible.”

Autumn mushrooms are the safest and most beneficial. The mushroom picker “gives out” all the accumulated negative with the first harvest, late autumn mushrooms can be safely harvested. They are the safest. The exceptions are mushrooms collected along highways, railways, landfills, landfills, etc. Eating them is extremely dangerous.

Another important mushroom nuance is edibility. Unlike other foods, mushrooms are conditionally edible. By the way, this term has taken root exclusively in our country. All over the world, pigs, volnushki, russula, milky, morels, milk mushrooms, rows (and other mushrooms that have a poisonous or pungent taste when raw) are considered inedible.

“Toxins of conditionally edible mushrooms are resistant to heat treatment (that is, neither frying nor boiling can neutralize them,” explains Elena Tereshina, Doctor of Biological Sciences, - you can eat them (if you really want to) only in a salted form and only at a "young age" (that is, rotten wormy mushrooms - overgrowths should be left in the forest "bed").

Mushrooms of the first and second nutritional value - white, boletus, boletus, mushrooms, chanterelles - not only tasty, but also extremely nutritious product. They are rich in vegetable protein (recommended for fasting), carbohydrates and minerals.

Moderation and caution

Mushrooms are considered "heavy food". Mushroom protein is enclosed in chiton shells, which are not affected by gastric juice, so their dietary fibers are practically not digested, they pass through the gastrointestinal tract in transit and complicate the digestion process.

Mushroom abundance on the table is fraught with eating disorders and indigestion.

To get the maximum benefit from mushrooms, start processing them immediately after harvesting (the content of biologically active substances in freshly picked mushrooms is higher than in stale ones). Remember that young mushrooms are more nutritious and healthier than old ones, and caps are more nutritious than legs.

The most useful way to harvest mushrooms is drying. When dried, moisture is lost, but the nutritional value increases. Mushrooms are best absorbed in a crushed form - prepare mushroom powder by grinding dried mushrooms in a coffee grinder or mill.

Treat for health

The medicinal properties of mushrooms are known no less than recipes. Mushroom decoctions, tinctures and powders have been present in the arsenal of healers since time immemorial. Chronicles testify that Vladimir Monomakh was treated with a decoction of chaga for a tumor of the lower lip. Mushrooms were also used by personal healers Empress Catherine II and Alexandra Feodorovna. Even before the revolution, about 50 species of mushrooms were considered medicinal.

In our time, a whole direction has arisen - fungotherapy (treatment with mushrooms). It is based on a solid evidence base. Penicillin, which saved millions of lives, was isolated from moldy fungi. After this discovery, it turned out that many mushrooms have antibiotic activity. The antibiotic agaridoxine, which acts on many pathogens, was obtained from meadow mushroom. The antibiotics drosofillin, nemotin, biformin, and polyporin were also obtained from fungi. More recent studies have shown that mushrooms can regulate blood pressure, lower cholesterol and blood sugar.

The real sensation was the discovery of the antitumor effect of mushrooms. Scientists discovered this property in the last century, drawing attention to the inhabitants of several Japanese villages in which there was not a single case of cancer. It turned out that the basis of the diet of their inhabitants is mushrooms. Today, the antitumor effect of mushrooms is being actively studied, but what biological compounds of fungi have such an effect is still not known for certain.

Proponents of fungotherapy believe that mushrooms can help with diseases of the heart and lungs, improve immunity, and almost every mushroom has beneficial properties.

A raincoat is a hemostatic agent. Pieces of the fungus applied to the wound stop bleeding, prevent suppuration and help rapid healing.

Honey mushrooms are effective against Escherichia coli, staphylococcus aureus. Autumn mushrooms are used as a mild laxative. Morels also help improve eyesight.

Mushrooms are a special gift of nature! They are tasty and are used by culinary specialists in a wide variety of dishes. And what a pleasure picking mushrooms brings: a forest filled with the aromas of herbs and foliage, the chirping of birds and the delight of mushroom finds! And no mushrooms from the store can compare with fragrant mushrooms from the forest, found in person. How to pick mushrooms and when to pick mushrooms. Answers to these questions will give mushroom calendar or mushroom calendar.

picking mushrooms- not such a simple matter as it might seem at first glance. There is an optimal time for picking different types of mushrooms. And of course you need the right weather conditions. The mushroom calendar will help you choose the time to go for mushroom gifts of nature. Experienced mushroom pickers, of course, can do without it, but for beginners, the mushroom calendar will come in handy.

mushroom calendar

A novice mushroom picker must know that the mushroom year begins in April and ends in the second half of October. Please note that each mushroom grows at a certain time, and not all the time. Therefore, if you are specifically targeting mushrooms or russula, then first you need to look at the calendar of mushrooms, specify the months when they grow.

• Mushroom calendar for April
  

April - the most difficult month for mushrooms, fixes the mushroom calendar. At such a time, there are still frosts very often, so not all mushrooms are able to survive frosts, snow and cold. Only the most resilient survive. Mushrooms appear around mid-April. You can find morels in the thick of the forest, exactly where the snow still lies. They grow in open areas where sunlight hits the most. But oak and pine forests will surely please you with cinder lines and omphalia.

• Mushroom calendar for May

May also does not particularly please mushroom pickers with an abundance of its gifts, according to the mushroom calendar. This is the month when mushrooms are just getting ready for their summer and bountiful season. But, if you try hard, then deep in the forest you can find morel caps and stocky lines. The end of May will please mushroom pickers more, since during this period there is a high probability of finding butterflies and chanterelles. Of course, the bulk of this type of mushroom will appear a little later, but if you are so impatient, then you have the opportunity to find such pioneer mushrooms.

• Mushroom calendar for June

In June, as the mushroom calendar says, there is a folk sign: If the strawberries have already turned red in the grass, and the mountain ash and viburnum have already covered with flowers, then you can safely go in search of russula. Finding them will not be difficult, as they are located in open places, and do not hide from anyone. In mid-June, you can safely go to the collection of boletus, butter and mossiness mushrooms. The end of the month will generously please you with strong men, mushrooms and loaders.

• Mushroom calendar for July

July, as the mushroom calendar records, is one of the least successful months for a mushroom picker. There is little rain during this period, and the scorching sun simply does not allow mushrooms to grow and develop normally. Therefore, during this period, you should not hope for a special harvest of mushrooms. But, nevertheless, if rainy weather has set in, then you can safely go to the forest in search of boletus, boletus and oil, according to the mushroom calendar.

• Mushroom calendar for August

August is one of the most favorable months for mushroom pickers, according to the mushroom calendar. The heat subsides, the night mists become more frequent, and the dew becomes more abundant. In the forests you can find a huge amount of oil. Also, you will definitely be lucky to see autumn mushrooms and Polish mushrooms. Ryzhiki is a real gift for a mushroom picker who went to the forest in August.

• Mushroom calendar for September, October
  

September and October are cold months, in which it is already difficult to find a large number of mushrooms, but still worth trying. The mushroom calendar notes that if you show perseverance and perseverance, you can please yourself with russula, goats and greenfinches.

More information about the growth schedule of mushrooms can be found in the Mushroom calendar below. Every month is rich in mushrooms. Simply, for each mushroom a special time is allotted. Therefore, if you have any preferences, then it is best for you to navigate this way the mushroom picker calendar.

Mushroom calendar for june july august spring and autumn

What mushrooms to collect	When to pick mushrooms
	mushrooms in april	mushrooms in May	mushrooms in june	mushrooms in July	mushrooms in august	mushrooms in september	mushrooms in october
Morels	+	+	+
Stitches	+	+	+
May mushroom		+	+
Oyster mushroom		+	+	+	+	+	+
meadow honey agaric			+	+	+	+
boletus			+	+	+	+
Oil can granular				+	+	+
summer honey agaric			+	+	+	+	+
Chanterelle real				+	+	+
Porcini			+	+	+	+	+
boletus			+	+	+	+	+
Plyutey deer			+	+	+	+	+
Raincoat prickly		+	+	+	+	+	+
Champignon ordinary			+	+	+	+
field champignon					+	+
Value				+	+	+
Funnel talker				+	+	+
Umbrella mushroom white				+	+	+
Mushroom-umbrella motley				+	+	+	+
real breast					+	+
poddubovik				+	+	+
Ivyshen					+	+	+
White loader					+	+
Loader black					+	+
Pig fat					+	+
Russula yellow, food, etc.		+	+	+	+	+
Flywheel green			+	+	+	+	+
hedgehog yellow					+	+
Ringed cap				+	+	+
Larch butter dish				+	+	+
Volnushka pink					+	+	+
Black breast				+	+	+	+
Ginger spruce green					+	+	+
Ginger pine					+	+	+
Talker gray					+	+
Oiler late					+	+
winter mushroom						+	+
Loader black and white						+	+
polish mushroom					+
Oyster mushroom autumn						+
Row gray						+
Autumn line						+	+
Autumn honey agaric						+	+
Row purple					+	+
Greenfinch					+	+	+
Hygrophorus brown						+	+

Now you know when to pick mushrooms. Hurry - the end of June is a great time to pick young mushrooms suitable for delicious dishes. For the time being, you can amuse yourself with delicious mushroom food, and for the remaining two summer months, feel free to pick mushrooms for pickles and pickling! And for a snack, interesting information about mushrooms and tips for mushroom pickers.

life span of mushrooms

Mushrooms grow rapidly, increasing by about 1-2 cm per day. The mushroom acquires an average size in 3-6 days. The life expectancy of honey agaric, chanterelles, boletus fits into 10 days. Up to 14 days live white fungus and boletus, up to 40 - champignon. With the maturation of spores, the number of which is in the tens of millions, the fungi grow old and often rot. Mushrooms are tasty and nutritious. If you follow some rules, the mushroom season will bring you only joy:

1. The first sign of a clean area worth picking mushrooms is the abundance of fly agarics.
   
2. If only russula grows on the edge, it is better to bypass it - most likely, the soil is contaminated.
   
3. 90% of mushrooms grow along the edges, clearings and young plantings, so it makes no sense to climb into the thickets, risking not finding your way home.
   
4. Mushrooms grow from 1 day to 3 days. Optimal conditions: 10-20 degrees Celsius, for lamellar and noble - from 5 to 15 degrees above zero. Humidity - 80-90%, rains and heavy dews are desirable.
   
5. Only young mushrooms are suitable for food, in which the caps are not fully opened or partially opened. Overripe mushrooms with a cap open like an umbrella have no nutritional value. It is better to hang such a mushroom on a twig - let the disputes spread around the area. But if the hat is curved like a dome, it means that the fungus has already released spores and poison is formed in it, similar to a cadaveric one. It is dangerous, it is the main cause of poisoning.

Earlier on Mushrooms:

Deer whips are found in the forests, but this is of little consolation

This summer with tropical downpours and St. Petersburg winds is absolutely not conducive to seasonal entertainment in the Moscow region: it's cold to swim, it's useless to sunbathe, it's too early to go mushrooming. According to the Forestry Committee of the Moscow Region, the mushroom season this year will come with a delay of 1.5 months - not in mid-July, but in early September. Rare chanterelles and butterflies, which now delight the eyes of the most zealous followers of quiet hunting, are unlikely to satisfy the demand of avid mushroom pickers and the appetite of sophisticated gourmets. There is practically nothing to dry, fry, pickle, boil, freeze and store for the winter, officials say.

Usually the beginning of the mushroom season in the Moscow region falls on the second decade of July, and the peak - on the second or third week of August. This is assuming a good summer. This year, the summer is cold, the earth does not have time to warm up, so we expect the mushroom season to start later, - the forestry committee explained to MK.

Meanwhile, true mushroom pickers are in no hurry to complain about the “dead season”. According to expert Oleg Savelyev, from the very beginning of summer he returns from the forest with a full basket.

There are really few mushrooms for this time of year, but if you wish, you can harvest a good harvest, Savelyev told MK. - At first there was a wave of morels, now there are summer mushrooms in the forests. There is a deer whip, a lot of chanterelles poured out and in some places - boletus. There are about a hundred species of mushrooms in the Moscow region, and the forests are almost never empty. Personally, I pick mushrooms from April to November. Somehow, even on January 13, I remember, I scored a full basket of mushrooms. Amateur mushroom pickers, of course, will not fill their baskets to the top now, but the postponement of the beginning of the mushroom season by the Forestry Committee is, in my opinion, a hasty decision. We will soon wait for the approval of the official date of its opening and closing date. You don't have to look far for an example: in Estonia, some time ago, the day the hazelnut harvest began was officially announced. But it's useless. If you wish, you can go to the forest at any time and find something there. Well, do not forget that over the past decades, the forests in the region have been heavily exhausted. Urbanization has done its job, and now there are fewer mushrooms, not only because the weather is not suitable, but because there has been a clearing and development of a green region. But even at the beginning of the 20th century, near Zagorsk, bears laid their dens with branches.

According to the general opinion of mushroom pickers, nature regularly throws up tricky riddles for lovers of quiet hunting. No one can still explain how and why 2 years ago in the forests of the Moscow region there was a real boom of the yellow cobweb. Until then, this mushroom was considered an extremely rare guest in these places, and then, for no apparent reason, it literally flooded the region. And then he disappeared again. The surprise of last year was the mass appearance of autumn mushrooms in July, for which the time, to put it mildly, has not yet come. Nevertheless, they “peeped out” all the time, and the mushroom pickers did not get tired of saying: “Miracles!”.

It is impossible to explain all these phenomena by weather conditions alone, Oleg Savelyev believes. Mycologist Ksenia Alekseeva agrees with him, who calls wild mushrooms “unpredictable creatures”:

The mushroom season has no harbingers. No scientific methods and folk signs can tell in advance what will happen to mushrooms this year. These microorganisms can unexpectedly produce mass fruiting, or they can disappear for no reason at all. Therefore, I cannot explain the temporary absence of the gifts of the forest only by the vagaries of the weather.

So questions from the series “How much longer to wait for the appearance of noble mushrooms?” automatically fall into the category of rhetorical. In the meantime, people do not disdain the collection of "conditionally edible garbage." And even within the city limits.

“In the green zone of Shcherbinka champignons are just a shaft! And in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe River Russula is darkness, ”a resident of the Moscow Region left his entry on one of the mushroom furums.

“Near the house in the city I saw 2 boletus and syrogi, but in the forest it was completely zero,” another netizen from Pushchino responded.

“Now there are more ticks than whites,” the third interlocutor sneered.