The people who think its ok to do industrial foraging,not good

[punkrockcaveman]

Something I've learned recently is that it's better to take the whole mushroom as in the whole fruiting body with a gentle twist as this doesn't leave anything to rot that can potentially damage the rest of the fungus network.
On the other hand taking mushrooms before they have been able to release spores will have a negative effect. Sometimes I take mushrooms that are past best and spread them around to help get more spores out, I only do this with mycorhizal fungi as they are beneficial to trees.

 

[Mesquite]

nothing is enforced in the UK you can easily get away with a lot of things ,but most people obey laws if there there

The laws are there and they are enforced

Dozens fined after Epping Forest fungi foraging clampdown

27 people have been fined a total of £2,160 for illegally picking large amounts of fungi at Epping Forest.The City of London Corporation, which protects the site, issued the £80 Fixed Penalty Notices over the last 12 months.Some were caught carrying out over 5kg of fungi – the equivalent to...

news.cityoflondon.gov.uk

 

[TeeDee]

Not any more. I've got a camper as my main vehicle. It's a chilled out life obeying the speed limits.

I've got a manual speed limiter and a cruise control. I use them whenever safe to do so.

But you're right, I do speed. My cruise control isn't the best so occasionally it shows 1mph over the speed limit on hills until it recovers back to the speed setting. However most car makes supposedly set the speedo showing slightly higher than reality so perhaps that's really not speeding, I wouldn't know for sure.

There's actually quite a few people like me who make a conscious decision to change their driving style. At first it isn't easy but everyone can improve despite motoring culture being about getting everywhere fast.

Ahhh, you just added the important bit. And thats fine.

I agree on the mental decision to change ones driving style however. If I ever find myself getting too 'eager' with the accelerator these days I try to find a little layby for 5 mins.

 

[Kadushu]

Not sure how peculiar this is to Instash1te. I noticed it back in the spring when plants were waking up and everyone was posting about picking this or picking that. The mushroom hauls seem to have started again in the last week. Interesting how so many people post about picking the same thing which gives the impression that the countryside is being stripped bare of whatever wild edible is currently in vogue.

 

[TeeDee]

Not sure how peculiar this is to Instash1te. I noticed it back in the spring when plants were waking up and everyone was posting about picking this or picking that. The mushroom hauls seem to have started again in the last week. Interesting how so many people post about picking the same thing which gives the impression that the countryside is being stripped bare of whatever wild edible is currently in vogue.

I used to post my wild food Gastro phots onto a FB group page - A few people there were always ( very vocally ) advising people to not pick Dandelion heads because it would directly impact on the Bee populace.

I love the little busy bee's but this notion that a few very niche interest foraging groups are going and pillaging the UK landscape bare I find amusing.

Commercial scaled foragers - maybe a different kettle of fish - I've never come across them myself and I'm not sure how would quantify the damage on the countryside?

 

[JonathanD]

I’ve noticed a massive increase in the collection of fungi this year. No one ever used to take chicken of the woods, but it was all cut off this year in my local woods. And everything has been harvested this last month too. The woods have been stripped.

 

[Toddy]

Years ago, when I first started getting interested in more than just the few seasonal edibles, I met an old Polish fellow who had a basket full of the most interesting looking mushrooms. He said that these were all edible, all commonly gathered on the continent, but no one did so here, and --here's the kicker-- because no one picked them, no one was stirring up the fungus to produce more fruiting bodies.

It not compute somehow. Yet, as he pointed out, in Europe it's commonplace for families to forage baskets full, every year, every fruiting season, and there's never any shortage....and I wondered, and I still wonder about it.

I spoke with one of the Countryside Rangers, and he said, he'd heard the same thing (there's a big population of Polish and Lithuanian descent folks near here, whose grandparents came over before WW1, I reckon the old fellow I met was one of the originals) from a few of the Poles and Lithuanians, and he too wondered. But apart from the fungi we did know were edible, and we both admitted that we picked them annually, and there were always ones to be found, that we had no way of working out if those folks were right or not.

 

[Wildgoose]

In many countries fungi picking is common to supplement the families food, I work with a few Polish guys who couldn’t believe the amount we have in the UK “going to waste”. They would harvest road side apple trees too.
Doesn’t make it right to pick bucket loads of course

 

[demographic]

I better not mention my mothers winemaking days on this thread then...
Wasn't industrial, but was certainty pretty industrious all the same.

 

[Spirit fish]

Nature can recover but how many deaths or serious injuries recover from speeding?

It's this whole lack of sticking to the rules right across society that's the problem. We're too much into our own little worlds to care about others or other things quite as much as we should.

For you organised, commercial foraging seems perhaps more important than doing a few mph over the speed limit in town because you're late or just because that's how you drive. I see it's worse the other way around. But it's the same issue. Somebody always thinks there's no harm doing what they are doing. If you don't get caught that's OK right?

I don't speed btw

 

[Spirit fish]

Totally believe that. Absolutely. Never.

I never said I or you speed but I see it daily a lot of people do it

 

[Spirit fish]

Forgive me - my sentiments are with you , I was however just attempting to illustrate a point.

Laws are only pragmatic and useful IF they are enforced and acted upon on a regular basis.

You are right , everyone speeds - now think about all the manpower and technology and process / implications that are put in place to stop speeding. Yet we all still speed.

And only a small percentage ( although I personally seem to be taking a hit for the home team far more than many... ) get caught.


Now think how enforceable and practical it would be to try and stop people foraging on a large scale in remote areas for commercial benefits.

Police these days seem to be either getting defunded or directed to spend their valuable real world time patrolling the cyber internet rooms to ensure those whom are offended and hurt by the violence of words get the justice that they deserve and the perp convicted.

People just need more educating about nature in schools

 

[Spirit fish]

I’ve noticed a massive increase in the collection of fungi this year. No one ever used to take chicken of the woods, but it was all cut off this year in my local woods. And everything has been harvested this last month too. The woods have been stripped.

Exactly snails are nearly extinct locally for the French restaurant trade

 

[Fadcode]

The laws are there and they are enforced

Dozens fined after Epping Forest fungi foraging clampdown

27 people have been fined a total of £2,160 for illegally picking large amounts of fungi at Epping Forest.The City of London Corporation, which protects the site, issued the £80 Fixed Penalty Notices over the last 12 months.Some were caught carrying out over 5kg of fungi – the equivalent to...

news.cityoflondon.gov.uk

I wonder if they take into account the amount of forageable material in places before granting planning permission for housing, which usually means destruction of forests and woods.

 

[Toddy]

The number of wood stoves being fitted in houses is having a really detrimental effect upon the woodlands again. Folks got rid of their coal fires and no longer gathered kindling. Now they're back at it because they want to minimise the expense of their 'free heat'.

 

[Fadcode]

It makes you think, will there be any trees left.
I fear it will be a lot worse in the future when Gas is banned and gone, and heat pumps will only heat your house to a low temperature.

 

[Toddy]

I want an all electric house, but we're having a nightmarish time trying to do it.
The electric cable coming into the house isn't power enough. So, we'd not only need to have all the gas uninstalled (minimum fee to cut us off, remove meter etc., seems to be +£900) but pay for the electricity cable trench to be opened up right back to the road as well as paying for the new cable and meter box. Then there's the whole central heating system installation too.

It's much simpler just replacing a combi boiler

I know the stated intent is no new gas installations and the slow removal and replacement of those there are, but it's not going to be easy and it's not going to be worth folks expense unless there are massive grants available.

Heat pumps aren't the godsend some claim either, especially in a climate like ours which is in constant flux, and they're noisy.

I think the best we can hope for in any short order is energy efficiency improvements in domestic appliances and insulation/dehumidifying.....that last bit matters here. We live in a temperate climate, and it''s an Atlantic Island temperate climate, not a continental hard deep cold climate. 67% is the level of moisture at which mould will grow, there are still huge damp problems when insulation isn't combined with sufficient ventilation....which itself has issues when outside is at +90% humidity on a fairly regular basis

 

[Toddy]

Sorry, really gone O.T. :blush:

 

[baggins]

OO, just got back from a weeks camping (and Foraging)in Scotland and seen this very timely thread.
We go up every year to harvest enough for ourselves for the following year. Over all probably 13kg wet weight over a week, spread over several areas.
It's interesting to see that in some areas that are well known foraging spots, the amount of Ceps that have gone over was amazing. In one spot we must have counted over 50 good size ceps in 10 sq mtrs that had all gotten secondary mould. Yet we had seen so many pics of folks harvesting 20-30kgs of them in the preceeding week. Who knows where they got them.
This year has been a very bountiful year for ceps, bays, orange and brown birch. Plus a lot a rarer (non-edible) species that got my better half very excited. So we make the most of the crop.
In leaner years, we will probably take 1 in 10 of what we see.
In all the years we have been foraging, we've only once come across a big gang once and that was down in the new forest. To be honest, we've probably only met 1 or 2 individual foragers in that time as well. Granted, we generally try to keep away from the more popular walking spots, but certainly not way off the beaten track.

 

[Broch]

The number of wood stoves being fitted in houses is having a really detrimental effect upon the woodlands again. Folks got rid of their coal fires and no longer gathered kindling. Now they're back at it because they want to minimise the expense of their 'free heat'.

It makes you think, will there be any trees left.
I fear it will be a lot worse in the future when Gas is banned and gone, and heat pumps will only heat your house to a low temperature.

Is this really the case though? If there is a demand for wood fuel there may be more planting and better woodland management - 15 year coppice to produce fuel for example.

At the moment most woodland around here is left on its own and unmanaged. That wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing (it's part of my own woodland management strategy) if it wasn't constantly grazed by sheep resulting in no new growth, no shrub layer, and trees all of the same age.