Where can you find porcini mushrooms? - This question is not easy to answer
It is a truism that passionate mushroom pickers do not reveal their favorite places of discovery to everyone. In fact, even experienced mushroom experts go on forays regularly and keep looking for new sites. If you want to search for and find mushrooms, you need a lot of patience, perseverance and also expert knowledge of the habitats and conditions in which, for example, porcini mushrooms thrive best. Only those who know where porcini mushrooms feel comfortable can search in the right places - and find what they are looking for at the right time. In addition to the location conditions, it also depends largely on the weather whether you find the mushrooms you want or not.
also read
- Porcini mushrooms and their different types
- Store and keep porcini mushrooms properly
- Can you grow porcini mushrooms yourself?
It all depends on the right weather
Basically, the following rule applies: mushrooms love it moist. A good or bad mushroom year can often be predicted as early as spring. When the snowdrops are in bloom and the birds start singing in the morning, it should rain a lot. Young boletus develop early in the year as pin-sized lumps under the ground and then need a lot of moisture. If there is no rain in spring, the mushrooms will also be missing in autumn. On the other hand, if spring was blessed with sufficient rainfall, you can often expect a good harvest as early as June. It is particularly worth looking for a nocturnal thunderstorm: the forest is then so heated by the sun that the rain creates a true greenhouse climate.
The right time of year to collect porcini mushrooms
The first boletus of the year is the summer boletus (Boletus reticulatus), which, depending on the weather, often grows from May / June and then into September. In milder weather, it also occurs in late autumn. The spruce boletus (Boletus edulis), on the other hand, like the black boletus (B. aereus) and the rarer pine boletus (B. pinophilus) - can be collected between July and November. Porcini mushrooms only grow until the first frost, after which the season is over and you have to resort to winter mushrooms.
The ideal location for a rich porcini mushroom harvest
Particularly promising find places for porcini mushrooms are beech forests with a lot of dead wood on the forest floor, as little grass cover as possible and gaps in the canopy where warming sun rays can reach the forest floor. Porcini mushrooms love such bright, warm places, which often even run right next to forest paths. In general, you can recognize a good boletus forest by the fact that there are trees of different ages and lots of dead wood on the forest floor. But even in spruce forests you have a good chance of collecting a lot of porcini mushrooms. The spruce is omnipresent in the low mountain ranges, especially in southern Germany there are large stands. In northern Germany, on the other hand, pine forests predominate, where with a bit of luck you will find the pine boletus.
Fungi live in symbiosis with certain tree species
But why do porcini mushrooms mainly grow under beech, oak, spruce or pine? Quite simply, the boletus lives with these tree species in a community in which both partners feed each other. The specialist calls this system “mycorrhiza”. Mushrooms grow with their spider web-fine threads hidden in the ground or in the wood. In contrast to plants, however, they do not need sunlight to grow, but instead get the necessary nutrients directly from the tree - which they in turn supply with nitrogen and other substances in exchange. In the course of evolution, many mushrooms have adapted to certain tree species, which is why you will now mainly find boletus near certain tree species.
Pointer plants show you the way
But don't just pay attention to the trees, as the presence of certain "pointer plants" indicates the presence of boletus mushrooms. The tasty porcini mushrooms often grow right next to the poisonous toadstool - if you find toadstools in the forest, it is usually not far to the porcini mushroom. This is due to the fact that both types of fungi live in symbiosis with the same tree species and, moreover, also form fruiting bodies at the same time. If, on the other hand, you can see a lot of nettles and / or balsam at the place you are visiting, you can confidently turn around: Both plants indicate a nitrogen-rich soil in which boletus do not feel comfortable at all.
Tips
If you want to successfully collect mushrooms, you have to get up early: Passionate mushroom pickers go into the forest at sunrise, so that only the leftovers are left for those who arrive later - if you can find anything at all. You also have to look very carefully, because especially with young boletus only the inconspicuous brown hat looks out of the earth. The fleshy, thick stem is often still deep in the substrate.
