The proof is in social networks. There, the ballotaires usually proudly display their boots. But this fall those photos and videos are hard to come by. There are few that are published. The mushroom campaign, at least in Catalonia and the easternmost part of the Pyrenees of Huesca, has not just started. The blame? The general lack of rain at the end of August and at the beginning of September. The drought, then, is also taking its particular toll on mycological production to the despair of searchers.
Juan Martínez de Aragón, researcher at the Forest Technology Center of Catalonia (CTFC), based in Solsona, corroborates this. “The season seems to be waking up in recent days – a month later than usual – in some forests of the Pyrenees of the westernmost Catalonia and the mountains of that mountain range in eastern Aragon, but it is a slow start,” he says. In those areas, mushrooms would have to be collected from the end of August “and that, this year, has not happened,” adds Martínez.
The toll that the drought has taken this year on the universe of mycology is counted, apart from that truncated illusion for thousands of searchers, by tons of mushrooms that are no longer going to be collected. “In those forests of the Pyrenees – says this forestry engineer – 50% of what would have ended up in the baskets and markets in a normal campaign has already been lost.” At the moment, according to CTFC research, only two kilos of mushrooms per hectare are being born in those mountains, when the usual amount is 200 kilos.
The situation, Martínez reveals, is even more critical in the forests of Cerdanya or central Catalonia, “where the season has not even started and we are already in October!” he exclaims. The forecasts are not at all promising for mushroom hunters. “The predictions do not speak of rain until mid-October and we greatly fear that this water will arrive at least at the highest levels, too late,” he laments.
Mushrooms are very sensitive to cold, and even if it were raining now, above a thousand meters of altitude, “it is normal for frosts to occur at night at this time of year. When that happens, the mushrooms disappear,” emphasizes Juan Martínez.
The situation experienced this autumn in the Catalan forests has nothing to do, however, with what has happened and is happening in other forest areas of Spain. In Navarra, for example, they have been collecting mushrooms for weeks “and the production there has been more generous,” reports this engineer. The same thing is repeated in the Basque Country or Soria. Although the fear is that this was just a mirage and production, if it doesn't rain, will stop. So if Catalan ticket holders are willing to travel thousands of kilometers to these destinations to get their loot, it is advisable not to get lost.
But not everything is lost in Catalonia. This season there could be the paradox that the last ballots could be the first. This is what Martínez points out when he predicts that if the expected rain arrives, the first explosion of mushrooms “could occur in the forests of the Catalan pre-coastal and coastal area. There the mushrooms start to grow at the end of October and November, so there are still a few weeks left to have hope.” Nor should we throw in the towel yet in areas of Poblet or Els Ports, “where mushroom production is also later,” he ventures.
Relating what is happening in the universe of mushrooms with climate change can be risky, emphasizes this forestry engineer, “not having enough study elements.” In fact, adds Martínez, “mushroom production in the forests of Catalonia has remained stable for the last 25 years.” It can be a very dry year and at the same time close a record mushroom season if the few rains that fall come at the right time. What they have confirmed in their research from the Solsona Forestry Technology Centre, "is that there is a tendency towards delays in the start of the campaigns." And that would be related to those increasingly earlier heat waves.
The other proof that this year's mushroom campaign has not yet started is in the market stops. Mushrooms are also conspicuous by their absence in these establishments. The Petràs stop in La Boqueria – the temple of mushroom stalls – is doing “juggling” this fall to be able to offer products to its customers. This is what Xavi Petràs states when he reveals that “this campaign we have hardly had any mushrooms collected in the forests of Catalonia, except for some cep or rovelló that came to us from Ripollès. And the situation in Europe, says Petràs, is not at all encouraging either. Mushrooms do not arrive from countries like Bulgaria or other Eastern forests. “Yes, we had mushrooms harvested in Navarra or Soria a few weeks ago,” he explains, “but now that production is also stopping.”
