USE SCISSORS/KNIFE TO HARVEST SO THEY COME BACK NEXT YEAR!!!!!

[Beastmaster]

I think this is an important issue, especially with mushroom season starting up.

When you just pull mushrooms up from the ground, leaving an exposed hole/mycellium, you are basically killing that patch, and they won't grow back in the same spot next year.

Granted there are often exceptions to the rule with large patches, but I've seen more cases where there were once mushrooms but now they are no more. Its not that hard to carry along some blunt tip scissors or a small folding knife.

If you think about it, this will help keep your harvest clean, as you'll be cutting the stem above the dirt, with nothing at the base to rub off onto the rest of your harvest in the bag.

I'm tellin ya, all the patches I hunted in the last two years were completely devoid of mushrooms the following year. I've seen it happen to Ps. cyanescens patches as well as chanterelles. I've heard plenty of complaints from locals at the mushroom society meetings, and have seen plenty of complaints about such from experienced hunters here.

You aren't missing out on any significant amount of weight to leave that tiny bit of stem behind. You're gonna probably cut off the dirty tips and discard em when you get home anyways.

You know there are even specialized knives for mushroom harvesting? They have a little brush on the handle for cleaning off the dirt after you cut the stem just above the surface of the ground.

I'm serious. You're not helping anyone, not even yourself, if you are a sloppy mushroom picker. Cuz next year when you go back, guess what? You'll have to find a new patch.

Do it right or get out of the way!

[Irishlion]

I completly agree 1000% there is no sence in destroying the mushy patch, clip them off and they will be there next year. GREAT thread Beast.

[Beastmaster]

[atheross]

as much as i want to believe that cutting the stems of my wild finds will result in less damage, I'm torn. does anyone actually have any proof that cutting the stems is good for the patch? i mean real proof, not just your opinion. my botany teacher says cutting the stems leaves the organism open to various infection; though my patch of hedgehogs seems to do just fine. lately I've been harvesting A. agustus by the pull out method and it doesnt seem to have any ill effect. personaly, i think that a carefull pull out does less damage, its the assholes straight walking around the patches/ ripping up big chunks of mycelium that jacks stuff up. sum one wana convince me to cut stems?

[Refugee231]

. . . less traumatizing to the
mushroom? Maybe. All I
know is, I would rather have
my leg cut off than to have it
ripped off. Be humane to the
mushroom, don't torture them.

[Refugee231]

FACT: The vast majority
of the people in this forum
would tell you to CUT the
mushroom, not pull.

[seedlessstinky1]

kinda hard to "make up a fact" there cheif.....

[Irishlion]

its a toss up really certain ones are supposed to be pulled but, others are to be cut, here is a exmaple but, in general it is good practice to cut off the mushies as their mycelium networks are delicate and beast is right some of the more saught after mushies are hard to come buy and if you pull them they WON'T be there next year

A sharp knife should be used to harvest morel and chanterelle mushrooms. Pulling the mushrooms out by the stalk will reduce production because you are destroying the mushroom's mycelium. The fruiting bodies (mushrooms) which you harvest are produced from the mycelium.
The pine mushroom is harvested by twisting the stalk and removing the whole mushroom which includes the portion which grows underground. The dirt is brushed off and the mushroom is checked for worms. You can check for worms by feeling the stalk. If it is still hard, it is likely not infested by worms. Wormy mushrooms should be discarded at the point of harvest so that spores are present for reproduction.

Quoted from this site
http://www.agriculture.gov.sk.ca/Def...3-47ce1b40ea1e

[Beastmaster]

as much as i want to believe that cutting the stems of my wild finds will result in less damage, I'm torn. does anyone actually have any proof that cutting the stems is good for the patch? i mean real proof, not just your opinion. my botany teacher says cutting the stems leaves the organism open to various infection; though my patch of hedgehogs seems to do just fine. lately I've been harvesting A. agustus by the pull out method and it doesnt seem to have any ill effect. personaly, i think that a carefull pull out does less damage, its the assholes straight walking around the patches/ ripping up big chunks of Mycelium that jacks stuff up. sum one wana convince me to cut stems?

You just got confirmation from your botany teacher, which was the same thing I said in my initial post:

When you just pull mushrooms up from the ground, leaving an exposed hole/mycellium...

leaving an exposed cut is to leave a vector for contamination. Whether its a ragged hole or a cleanly cut stem.

does anyone actually have any proof that cutting the stems is good for the patch? i mean real proof, not just your opinion.

What I posted was not my opinion, but my experience/proof/observations, with multiple wild patches, of multiple species, not just the fancy little, well maintained patch in my back yard of a species that doesn't grow there naturally.

If you are being so careful to remove the stem without disturbing the surrounding mycellium, perhaps by twisting, and then plugging the hole with moss or nearby humus, then the mycellium will have a better chance to recover. That's not my opinion, that's well known advice.

[atheross]

so i suppose the consensus is that no one really knows. cutting multiple organisms with the same knife is obviously going to increase the chance of cross contamination between infected and uninfected individuals. i personally disapprove spreading invasive species around the country in the form of personal patches in the backyard, so I'm only talking about wild caught species here. so, starting probably this afternoon i will begin harvesting B. mirabilis, yellow and funnel chantrelles, and hedgehogs with both the pull out and cut methods. i'll record the results over a few weeks for imediate impact; then check back in a few months for mycelium growth/loss; then next year to see the differences year to year. this is bullshit that nobody knows for sure: how can we hunters give advice to novices about how to harvest when we might be doing more harm than good in passing on poor collecting practices. i simply feel that spreading false information, even with good intentions, has an overall degretory effect on everyone, man and mushroom.

[Refugee231]

I think the general consensus of cutting and not
pulling is the best thing to teach anyone. One
person's gentle is another person's not-so-gentle.
There are also many variables that can't always
be known. It is just better practice to cut rather
than pull. Here-say and word of mouth have
shown that in the greater scheme of things, cut
rather than pull, is the best method for preserving
the life of the mycelium. Why risk it?

[mjshroomer]

Originally Posted by Beastmaster

I think this is an important issue, especially with mushroom season starting up.

When you just pull mushrooms up from the ground, leaving an exposed hole/mycellium, you are basically killing that patch, and they won't grow back in the same spot next year.

Granted there are often exceptions to the rule with large patches, but I've seen more cases where there were once mushrooms but now they are no more. Its not that hard to carry along some blunt tip scissors or a small folding knife.

If you think about it, this will help keep your harvest clean, as you'll be cutting the stem above the dirt, with nothing at the base to rub off onto the rest of your harvest in the bag.

I'm tellin ya, all the patches I hunted in the last two years were completely devoid of mushrooms the following year. I've seen it happen to Ps. cyanescens patches as well as chanterelles. I've heard plenty of complaints from locals at the mushroom society meetings, and have seen plenty of complaints about such from experienced hunters here.

You aren't missing out on any significant amount of weight to leave that tiny bit of stem behind. You're gonna probably cut off the dirty tips and discard em when you get home anyways.

You know there are even specialized knives for mushroom harvesting? They have a little brush on the handle for cleaning off the dirt after you cut the stem just above the surface of the ground.

I'm serious. You're not helping anyone, not even yourself, if you are a sloppy mushroom picker. Cuz next year when you go back, guess what? You'll have to find a new patch.

Do it right or get out of the way!

While scissors are important they are only good when used with wood chip or bark mulch species where mycelia feeds throughout the wood. Generally most mulch patches last from two to three years and then the nutrients in the wood chips, sawdust, bark mulch, or branches, twigs and stems nutrients are depleted within three yearsl

Using scissors on such garden areas is good for more shrooms to fruit during the season.

However, many areas often do not get remulched with the same alder wood originally in the areas where patches of cyans or stuntizii's or baeos and similar woodland varieties grow. The landscappers buy whatever commenrcial mulch is available at the time of the year when an area is remulched. Usually with cedar. ANd cyans and Psilocybes will not grow where cedar is lain.

This is because 95% of the alder clearcuts are now illegal in the PNW, so alder is not available as it once was.

IF alder is replaced in a certain area, then the shrooms will return for several years, but usually that is not the case.

Also Ivy eats the mycelia up when planted where cyans appear, as do strawberry plants, and blackberry brambles, usually within a couple of years of the first fruiting. By then the plants take over the complete area..

As for blue ringers and/or baeocystis in a lawn or liberty caps in fields and lawns, there is no need to cut them with scissors to pick them. Lawn mowers on a weekly basis spread the spores into the surrounding grass in a specific area. Never has shrooms grown in lawns across the street from a place you might pick for an hour or longer for blue ringers and then go into other lawns, and they rarely regrow or spread in that manner onto other lans from spores on your shoes or bodies. Thats because there are no pertilizers in the other lawns or they are older lawns.

Lawn service is what keeps a patch in a lawn rejuvenating year after year, but most lawn services to new buildings, condos, restaurants, apartment complexes etc., only last two to three years. Many only for six months. Once the lawn service companies stop spraying the liquid fertilizers into the soils, the shrooms disappear. And buildings began to use their own employees to mow lawns so they do not get the correct lawn service. This is because it gets more and more expensive for a company to maintain their nice original gardens and so the grass tends to age and become yellowish like sttraw after a few years of improper care.

P. cyanescens also get ruined in a single year by people who find a small or semi large colonies of one to five pounds or so and rip them from the earth and ruin their mycelium and ruin the patch because they do not use scissors.

Also crawling on ones knees through a large patch also causes damage to the mycelia by weight crushing, something many pickers are unaware of.

The weight of ones knees on the earth does damage the mycelia and causes less shrooms to reappear in 2nd and 3rd flushings in a season.

But try to use scissors on any woodchip variety of shrooms. and just go pick the ringers and libs as you normaly do. There is no reason to use scissors or knifes on them.

mjshroomer

[Godflesh]

Enough said!

[atheross]

werd

[doomage]

Originally Posted by atheross

as much as i want to believe that cutting the stems of my wild finds will result in less damage, I'm torn. does anyone actually have any proof that cutting the stems is good for the patch? i mean real proof, not just your opinion. my botany teacher says cutting the stems leaves the organism open to various infection; though my patch of hedgehogs seems to do just fine. lately I've been harvesting A. agustus by the pull out method and it doesnt seem to have any ill effect. personaly, i think that a carefull pull out does less damage, its the assholes straight walking around the patches/ ripping up big chunks of mycelium that jacks stuff up. sum one wana convince me to cut stems?

if the patch is big enough or well formed enough it will likely resist any damage caused by pulling, however, small patches or weak patches will die,its better to not risk destroying a patch by cutting the stem, if you dont want to, them at least be careful when you pull it out.

[tre_jody]

so i have read this whole thread and still do not know if i should cut or not. It is may and i have just harvested about 55 morels from a patch that i just found and pulled all of them. I really hope that i did not wreck the patch. I am fairly new to this and hadn't really thought much of cutting.

[roc]

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