BCM Journal, Isle of Wight Edition 2023

The secret soil
improver
What do you see when you think of wild mushrooms? A red cap with white spots?
Perhaps your mind has already wandered down the vegetable aisle of the supermarket
to some nice girolles or ceps?
Like icebergs, the majority of
fungal life happens below
the surface. Vast networks of
mycelium connect to tree roots and
enable individual plants to communicate
and transfer water, nitrogen, carbon and
other minerals to each other, just like
borrowing sugar from your neighbour!
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Mycelia have a number of important
uses in agriculture. The quality of the
soil is almost wholly dependent upon
mycelia. If there is no fungal activity
in the soil, the crops just won’t grow as
well. They are also used to break down
toxic substances like pesticides and
petroleum.
Mushrooms and fungi are the fruit of
these networks. They come in as many
shapes and colours. You don’t even have
to be anywhere exotic to see something
spectacular!
Our own team member Stacey enjoys
looking out for the weird and wonderful
as well as foraging for the more common
varieties. She comments that “field
mushrooms are actually quite easy to
identify, although there are a couple
of imposters that try to catch you out
such as the ‘yellow stainer’, which looks
and smells exactly like a common field
mushroom. That is until it gets damaged
when it bruises almost instantly with a
distinct yellow colouring”.
When it comes to anything weird and
wonderful though caution should
prevail. Maybe just take a photo for
Instagram rather than touching or
worse eating something unknown.
Caution should also be taken by
enthusiastic chefs as foraging for food
on public land is fine for personal
consumption but it’s actually illegal to
sell your bounty in, say, a restaurant!
A selection of Isle of
Wight fungi.
BCM Journal 69