Fungi are sometimes mistakenly classified as plants, but because of their position between plants and animals they are grouped together in their own order "Funga". After all, mushrooms differ from many plants in their special way of growth.

The fruiting body as the tip of the iceberg

What people usually harvest and sometimes eat as a mushroom is actually only part of a mushroom. The fruiting body above the earth's surface is usually only a small part of the actual mushroom network. This above-ground part is needed for the distribution of the spores and thus for the multiplication of the fungi.

Environmental conditions for rapid fungal growth

Experienced collectors of edible mushrooms know that certain weather conditions can promise a particularly rich yield on forest walks. Forest mushroom populations that grow rapidly out of the ground occur particularly under the following conditions:

  • with a consistently warm air temperature, for example in July and August
  • with sufficient humidity due to persistent rainfall
  • in muggy summer and autumn weather

The constantly high temperature and humidity levels cause many types of mushrooms to shoot their sometimes edible and tasty fruiting bodies out of the forest floor within a few hours and days.

The stages of fungal growth

If mushrooms are cultivated as edible mushrooms for consumption, they are usually cultivated by applying fungal spores to a culture substrate such as straw. When growing champignons, bales of straw are soaked, and after inoculation with spores, they are stored in a room with constant temperatures and high humidity. The mushroom mycelium then grows through the entire straw bale within about two to three weeks. It then only takes a few days for the mushroom mycelium to develop the fruiting bodies in the shape of the mushrooms on the surface.

tips and tricks

The apparent appearance of mushrooms "overnight" is not necessarily related to the incidence of light on a mushroom population. Since fungi do not have any chlorophyll or mechanisms for photosynthesis, they are largely independent of the incidence of light. However, dew usually forms at night, which is why the growth of the mushroom fruiting bodies is accelerated due to the moisture. As fast as the mushrooms grow from the forest floor, they also have to be harvested in order to be used, because they often only last a few days.

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Vegetable garden