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Mushroom growth forcasting


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Got me thinking - what is it in a season that dictates a good or bad year? What other factors contribute? I remember vividly a couple years where we stuffed our trunk to the brim with king boletes but we haven't hit anything like it for 10 years now ( temperate Canadian climate)... does the age of the tree matter? Perhaps its a microhabitat the smaller trees create? Its a vague question and I'm sure it varies on type/genus or whatever so lets talk mycorrhizal mushies?

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I don't know about Ontario, but here in SW BC King Boletes are clearly linked to rainfall during the summer. Most years, when the summer is dry, they only appear in the mountains for a short while between the start of the rains and the arrival of cold weather. If the fall rains arrive too late, e.g. not until October, there will be no King Boletes that year. Late August to early September rains provide a decent crop, but only at higher elevations. Earlier rains will provide crops at lower elevations; and one exceptional year, when it rained quite a bit in early July, we had King Boletes all over the mountains, even at elevations lower than any previous years. Note that here the host trees only grow fairly high up in the mountains; so, with minor exceptions, there are none to be had at really low elevations.

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Like vitog says, it's all about the amount and timing of the rain. One other thing, if several consecutive years feature the best rain/timing, then the fungus may need to recover from using so much energy to put out mushrooms year after year, and a year of meager production may result despite good conditions. I have seen this with mycorrhizal types like Boletus edulis, B. separans, and Cantharellus lateritius (Smooth Chanterelles).

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For the early season, lots of rainfall and the warmer the better. B. edulis seems to respond to the soil temperature rising along with ample moisture. This combination seems pretty clear for the early Kings, and I think it's not a lot different for the late ones. A period in late September or October with lots of rainfall followed by a warmup has worked for me. After a very dry period of weather it may take several rain events before the Kings get started. But I have seen exceptions to this... a dry period followed by a couple of decent showers and suddenly they're there! I suggest following precipitation trends online. The maps are usually fairly accurate (occasionally off.. probably due to rainfall location not correlating with cloud formation). One source I use is...

http://www.intellicast.com/National/Precipitation/Weekly.aspx?region=bgm

Intellicast also has a "daily precip" page.

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