Drought leaves Upper Austria’s mushroom baskets nearly empty

Heat and a lack of rain have led to an exceptionally poor mushroom season in Upper Austria, ORF reported on Saturday. While mushroom pickers’ baskets were well filled last year, they have so far remained almost empty in many places.

“I have been studying fungi for 40 years, and I cannot remember anything like this,” said Josef Steininger of the Mycological Working Group in Linz.

Only a few mushrooms can currently be found, and they quickly dry out. Decomposer fungi and parasitic fungi are more common because they need less moisture. They obtain nutrients and moisture from wood or their hosts and can therefore cope better with the dry conditions. However, these species are of little interest to mushroom pickers because they are rarely used as edible mushrooms.

The key to mushroom growth is the mycelium, a fine network of threads that grows in the soil and normally remains protected from surface conditions. In many places, however, the soil has now also become too dry.

Pilzberater Otto Stoik said the region would need heavy, continuous rain for about a week after the prolonged dry spell. A short, intense shower would not be enough because most of the water would run off the surface. Only sustained rain could help the mycelium recover. New fruiting bodies could then appear within three to five days.

The mushroom season has not yet been written off completely, but it depends on sufficient rainfall. “There will be more mushrooms again in autumn. But without rain, that will not work either,” Steininger said.