If you forage mushrooms, you know how delicate the ecosystem is. This is why it’s important to forage carefully and gently. There are ways to forage your mushrooms sustainably and ethically, and we want to show you how to do just that. It’s important to approach our environment gently, even though foraging may be an exciting experience. If you’re interested in learning more, check our list below.

Only Take What You Need

Stumbling across a bundle of mushrooms in a patch can be exciting, but practicing restraint is important when picking them. It’s very easy to over-forage, especially when you see a lot of mushrooms in one spot. It makes you think there is more than what there is. Nonetheless, people are over foraging every day, slowly decreasing the number of fungi in the environment before they can grow back. It may seem like the small amount of foraging you do is tiny in the grand scheme of things, but what if everyone thought the same? Take what you need, and don’t get greedy. This is the best way to sustainably and ethically forage your mushrooms.

Mushroom Patches Are Not Apple Trees

Picking mushrooms isn’t like picking apples from a tree. When you forage the fruiting mushroom body, it doesn’t negatively impact or hurt the mycelium underground. This isn’t exactly wrong, but let’s add some nuance here. The mycelium network will eventually stop producing nutrients that make more mushrooms. Mushrooms need to be allowed to go through their natural life cycles and growth processes, and if you continue to over-pick them, they won’t be able to do that. We should also note here that you don’t need very many mushrooms to grow your mushrooms at home. A few caps and spores will do, and you’ll have high-yield mushrooms in no time.

To Pluck or To Cut?

That is the question. Do you cut mushrooms off the stem and leave them on the ground or pluck the entire mushroom at the base? The two methods are interchangeable if you’re looking to forage, but each has its benefits and drawbacks. Some would say plucking will damage the mycelium in the ground, making it impossible for mushrooms to sprout in that spot again. Others say this is impossible since animals forage this way, and it seems like the mycelium is fine afterward. Alternately, while you get a yield when you cut, it can “damage” the stem. However, recently we’ve found that it doesn’t matter which method you use, so choose whichever is right for you.

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