There is proof on social networks. There, mushroom pickers often proudly display their spoils. But this autumn these photos and videos are being prayed for. Those that are published are counted. The mushroom campaign, at least in Catalonia and the easternmost part of the Pyrenees d'Osca, has not yet started. The fault? The widespread lack of rain at the end of August and at the beginning of September. The drought, therefore, also takes its toll on the mycological production to the despair of the searchers.
Juan Martínez de Aragón, researcher at the Forestry Technology Center of Catalonia (CTFC), based in Solsona, corroborates this. "The season seems to be waking up these last few days - a month later than it would have - in some forests of the most western Pyrenees of Catalonia and the mountains of this mountain range in eastern Aragon, but it is a slow start", affirms In these areas, mushrooms should be collected from the end of August and that, this year, has not happened", adds Martínez.
This reality, the result of the drought in the world of mycology, takes shape, aside from the truncated illusion for thousands of searchers, in tons of mushrooms that will no longer be collected. "In these forests of the Pyrenees - says this forestry engineer - 50% of what would have ended up in baskets and markets in a normal campaign has already been lost". At the moment, according to the investigations of the CTFC, in these mountains only two kilos of mushrooms are born per hectare, when what would touch is 200 kilos.
The situation, Martínez reveals, is even more critical in the forests of Cerdanya or central Catalonia, "where the season hasn't even started and we're already in October", he exclaims. The forecasts are not at all encouraging for the boletos. "The predictions do not speak of rain until mid-October and we are very afraid that this water will arrive, at least for the highest elevations, too late".
Mushrooms are very sensitive to the cold and, even if it was raining now, from a thousand meters of altitude "it is normal that, at this point of the year, there are frosts during the nights. When this 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 mushroom growing areas of Spain. In Navarre, for example, they have been picking mushrooms for weeks and the production has been more generous", informs this engineer. The same is repeated in the Basque Country or Soria. Although there is the fear that this was only a mirage and production, as a result of no rain, will stop. Therefore, if the Catalan ticket offices are willing to travel thousands of kilometers to these destinations to get their loot, it is advisable not to get lost.
But all is not lost in Catalonia. This season there could be the paradox that the last mushroom pickers could be the first. This is what Martínez points out, who predicts that if the expected rain arrives, the first explosion of mushrooms "could occur in the pre-coastal and coastal forests of Catalonia. There, the mushrooms start to grow at the end of October and November, so there are still a few weeks left to get our hopes up." Nor should we throw in the towel yet in the areas of Poblet or les Ports, "where mushroom production is also later", he ventures.
Relating what is happening in the world of mushrooms to climate change can be risky, emphasizes this forest engineer, "since we do not have enough study elements". In fact, he adds, "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 do fall come at the right time. What they have found in their investigations from the Solsona Forestry Technology Center "is that there is a tendency to delay the start of the campaigns". And that would have something to do with these increasingly earlier heat waves.
The other proof that this year's mushroom campaign has not yet started is the market stalls. Mushrooms are also conspicuous by their absence in these establishments. The Petràs stall in la Boqueria – the temple of mushroom stalls – is “juggling” this autumn to be able to offer products to its customers. This is what Xavi Petràs says, who reveals that "this campaign we have barely had any mushrooms collected in the forests of Catalonia, apart from some vines or russets that came to us from Ripollès. And the situation in Europe, Petràs indicates, is not at all encouraging either. No mushrooms arrive from countries like Bulgaria or other forests in the East. "Yes, we had, a few weeks ago, mushrooms collected in Navarre or Sória - he explains - but now this production is also stopping".
