Keg said:

Here's some of today's finds, largest was 21.6 grams wet.

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Keg said:

Here's some of today's finds, largest was 21.6 grams wet.

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Tikaani said:

Quote:

I wonder why?

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Personal preference to take note and maintain a precise accuracy and to hopefully encourage others to search for similar direction with a hope for the benefit of all.

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ambc said:

These are actually from the Spring, but I didn't have a working computer then. My first find of this species, and my first warm weather active find.



Psilocybe stuntzii

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ambc said:

If I didn't only pick the open caps I would have gotten two or three times the haul I brought back. Of course occasionally you mistakenly get a couple of pins, but I definitely see that some people are picking a lot more closed caps than could be an accident, please let those mushrooms grow up to reproduce!!! At the very least make sure that the veil is broken. At my spot it is nearly or totally impossible to get anywhere near the base with scissors, unless i want to cut down the thick twisted grass that the bases are in, which would be incredibly damaging to the habitat. I just wiggle the mushroom out very gently, about half the time they break because they are all tangled in the grass. I don't believe it is any more harmful to the organism than cutting them if you are very gentle when removing them. Cutting leaves an easy route for diseases to get into the organism, picking them supposedly shocks the mycelium. I know there are some species that you definitely want to cut, azures I believe you just want to be as gentle as possible with.

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The pick- or cutting discussion is on for years!
There's no evidence, that cutting actually weakens the mycelium! There have been speculations about the mycelial complex doesn't "realize" the damage, which makes it vulnerable for bacterial infection, but when you take a look at what happens in nature, you might want to conclude, that this would make little sense.
Mushrooms are a source of food for many different life forms. Dear, slugs, bacteria, other mushrooms etc.
If the damage of a fruit would make the mycelium so much more vulnerable to bacterial infections, there would be quiet few mushrooms left in this world, because they're eaten all the time.

The discussion isn't really about picking or cutting in the end, it's about the WAY of picking.

Take the Amanita muscaria for example. It can easily be pured from the ground, leaving only a small whole. No further damage is visible.
But when it comes to wood loving mushrooms, you have to be very careful! The mycelial structure seems to be a lot stronger, while the substrate is pretty loose and consists of different single pieces (wood chips).
When you just tear it from the ground, the possibility of big chunks of wood chips are "picked" as well, and therefore not only big parts of the mycelium (mushroom) is torn apart, but also the substrate itself is removed from the patch (when people take the wood chips with them, cleaning the mushrooms later), is a lot higher.

It pretty much depends on how you do it.

In the end, you stated, that the picking process should be done very carefully and that you picked the mushrooms, because it's very difficult to cut them, without damaging the grass around them.
This problem appeared to me very often and I also twisted them out of the ground, very gently, simply because there was no other way.

I can't tell if you "pick" them, even when they're growing from easily accessible patches (without grass), so I'm far from making any accusation (especially since "gentle picking" doesn't necessarily mean to damage the mycelium much more than cutting does).

I just reacted to your post in this way, because I try to prevent yet unknowing hunters from interpreting the statement of "cutting as a reason for risk" incorrectly!

GlassSnake said:

Found my first ever Baeos today! WOO! Will post pics a bit later when I get home.

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Grats!  I've yet to find any.  Well... Actually, I think I have found them in the past but I don't know enough about them to ID them properly.

One of these days I'll do some study up and go out specifically looking for them I suppose...  We'll see...