Every new summer Spain faces the increasingly common threat of devastating forest fires. We are experiencing it in our territory these days with the many active fires fueled by the extreme heat wave, devastating in a few days about 30,000 hectares. The images are dramatic and extend to other countries, not only in Europe. And one of the serious problems we face, as explained in Xatakais the most effective when it comes to suffocating them.
Although the images of the landscapes burned by the flames are dramatic, the truth is that the fire used to “clean” the forests in a natural way. Now the recovery of natural land does not occur in the same way, and each time it has more negative effects on fertility ground.
We will have to wait to make a final assessment of this summer’s fires, with many fires still active and the ever-present threat of new ones, as there are still many weeks of heat to come. But, once the land breathes again, a small organism will emerge from the soil burned as a small sign of hope to recover lost nature.
It is the curious case of the morel of firea variety of the prized spring mushroom that has the ability to reproduce and grow particularly vigorously on forest floors that have suffered from recent fires the previous season.
Also known as exemplary morchellathis species of the morel genus is a mushroom described for the first time by Émile Boudier in 1910 associated with fire, since grows abundantly in recently burned forests, especially pines, beech forests or oaks. Although the precise causes are not clear, according to experts, it may be due to an increase in certain micronutrients in the soil, particularly minerals that proliferate in the ashes, such as magnesium or potassium.
The freak can become of such magnitude that in certain areas of the United States and Canada there are many mushroom hunting groups who go out in search of it specifically by going to burned forests. “Sometimes in burned areas there are just hundreds,” says Joe Spivack of the Oregon Mycological Society; “You can see at least a hundred morels in an area the size of a car hood.”
According to the expert, this surviving fungus also has an added value to the already valued mushroom, as it contains a soft smoky touch which makes them tastier and more delicate than common morels. Last year, fires ravaged almost 2.5 million hectares in the west of the country, which is expected to be a particularly fruitful season for mushroom hunters.
In addition to the possible explanation associated with the micronutrients in the ashes, the researchers point out that the mycelia that remain underground benefit from how the flames destroy other competing species, leaving free way to feed of organic and mineral matter, facilitating its fruition. And so, from the ashes of the calcined soil, one of the most peculiar and valued mushrooms in the gastronomic world emerges.
Mushrooms (Universal Encyclopedia)
Images | Glacier NPS – Lukas Large
In DAP | Morels, the exquisite spring mushroom: characteristics, varieties and how to cook the mushroom most coveted by chefs
In DAP | Only two of these mushrooms are edible: how to clearly distinguish the culinary species among a majority of toxic fungi
