We all heard that an experienced forester always takes a knife with him into the forest (and also a rope and a gag, but that's a completely different story;) because mushrooms should never be pulled out of the ground, but only carefully cut off at the base of the leg …
For those who have been tormented by this question for many years, those who suffer from sleepless nights, again and again returning their thoughts to this riddle, I will say right away, this is a myth.
There is no need to cut the mushrooms, they can be pulled out of the ground without any remorse - this will not cause any harm to the mushroom. Everything, you can not read further.
I warn you not to read further!
Beware of boring scientific explanation ahead!
Well, okay, rebel, be it your way, you've made your choice. So, let's first try to make out where this myth's legs grow from.
Promotional video:
THE ORIGIN OF THE MYTH
Try to immediately remember everything you know about mushrooms. Most likely it will come to your mind that most of the mushrooms you know grow from the ground, that they do not move, that they have an underground and aboveground part. Those who studied biology well at school will probably recall other features: they reproduce by spores, they have cell walls, and, like lower plants, they lack tissues. Whom does this description remind us of in the first place? That's right - this is very similar to the description of plants and it is not surprising that for a long time mushrooms were considered such.
What happens if you go to, say, a blooming dandelion and pull it out of the ground? Of course, the dandelion will die, since you pulled out not only its shoot, but also at the same time most likely pulled it out either with a part or with the whole root. However, there is a fairly large number of plants, for example, lily of the valley, with highly developed underground organs, in which they store a large amount of nutrients - if only the shoot is cut off from such a plant without damaging the underground part, then the plant will not die, but using its underground reserves forms new escape. Simply put, a new plant will grow in place of the cut plant. It is not difficult to guess that not knowing how mushrooms are actually arranged and mistakenly considering them a variety of plants, people transferred these ideas to them, deciding that pulling out the mushroom,they damage its "root" (which in fact it does not have) and come to the erroneous conclusion that a new one will not grow in the place of such a "pulled out" mushroom.
HOW IT REALLY IS
Nevertheless, despite the superficial similarity, mushrooms are not plants at all. They have a different biochemical composition, a different physiology, a different structure, and most importantly, unlike plants, they are not able to photosynthesize (in short, for those who have forgotten what PHOTOSYNTHESIS is - this is a way to obtain the necessary nutrients when a plant takes carbon dioxide and water from the environment and, using solar energy, produces from them proteins, fats and carbohydrates necessary for its life). Why did the dandelion we pulled out for example die? Pulling it up by the roots, we deprived it of the ability to normally absorb water, the process of photosynthesis stopped and the dandelion died. For the same reason, he died and being cut off - removing its aerial part, we deprived the root of the photosynthetic products formed in the leaves and stem,and since he himself did not really store anything in the underground part, having lost nutrients, he was not able to form a new shoot and died again.
Since mushrooms are not able to produce organic matter on their own, then, like animals, they are forced to absorb it from the outside. Over the billions of years of existence, mushrooms have mastered many methods of extracting organic substances: there are parasitic fungi, predatory fungi, symbiont fungi, but the lion's share of fungi are so-called SAPROTROPH. Saprotrophs are organisms that, in simple terms, use decaying organic matter for food: animal corpses, decaying foliage, silt, etc. And where are we full of decaying organic matter on land? That's right - in the soil, i.e. just where all these milk mushrooms, fly agarics and champignons stick out. And then the time came for the only picture in the text:
So how does a mushroom actually work? Like a plant, the fungus really consists of an aboveground and underground part, but unlike a plant, the aboveground part of the fungus, called the fruiting body, is needed only for one purpose - to spread spores, i.e. for about the same for what you need, say an apple apple. The "real" mushroom is located underground and is called mycelium or scientifically mycelium. It is the mycelium that represents the true body of the fungus, the surface of which it absorbs from the soil water and the very decomposing organic matter.
But what difference does it make, you say? You still need to cut the mushroom, not pluck it? After all, pulling it out can damage the mycelium, right?
Not really. The fact is that myceliums of mushrooms are usually huge and occupy huge areas. For example, the largest mycelium in the world covers an area of 8,800,000 square meters https://www.nat-geo.ru/fact/41372-gigant-iz-oregona … Therefore, even if we imagine that some enterprising mushroom picker combes a forest along and tearing all the fruit bodies out of the ground, simultaneously capturing several square centimeters of the mycelium with them, even in this case, the hypothetical damage that will be done to the mycelium will be negligible in comparison with its scale, and the mycelium will grow to its previous size faster than you read this post to end. But if the mushroom is cut off, then a piece of the damaged leg will remain in the ground, in which putrefactive bacteria will start, which can penetrate the mycelium and also damage some (also not very large, however,since mushrooms are great masters in the fight against bacteria) part of the mycelium.
As you can see, whatever one may say, the procedure for cutting a mushroom is completely pointless and potentially even more harmful, so next time you go for mushrooms, boldly tear them with your hands and do not worry =)
PS The text contains a small amount of biological inaccuracies. The author knows about them and asks not to throw kakakami at him for them =) I tried to make the text accessible to a wide range of people who do not have special knowledge in biology, so I had to simplify in places.
Author BioMyth