FORAGERS need to slow down to avoid poisoning themselves during a bumper mushroom season, a central Victorian expert says.
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The boom will likely come after an unusually cool and wetter summer, Alison Pouliot predicts.
She just hopes people will not rush out and mistake a poisonous variety for an edible one.
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"We live in this fast-forwarded world and people want 10-point checklists, but things are not always that simple," Dr Pouliot said.
"I work with people who have mushroom poisoning and it often comes from people being too hasty. They often think it is easy to identify a mushroom."
Dr Pouliot and mycologist Tom May have recently published a new book based on the idea that it is better to take a more careful and considered approach to mushrooming.
The book, Wild Mushrooming: A Guide for Foragers, is a result of five years of painstaking research into every claim a species of mushroom found in Australia is edible.
They found a lot of dubious claims, especially on the internet.
"What we say is that rather than trying to learn every type of edible mushroom you can, it's better to learn a few really thoroughly,' Dr Pouliot said.
"If you know every detail you can never confuse them with something else."
The safest mushrooms to gather are the ones that have been introduced from Europe because people have devoted millennia to trial and occasionally fatal error.
Scientists know less about Australia's native fungi. Indigenous people had detailed knowledge but a lot of it was lost in the trauma and dislocation of colonisation.
They and Traditional Owners are piecing that knowledge back together but it is a slow process, Dr Pouliot said.
The work is taking on added importance as more Australians discover the joys of foraging in a return to cultural traditions from the past.
"I call it a 'fungal awakening' of sorts. A lot of people are becoming interested in them and not just as food," Dr Pouliot said.
"I get calls from sculptors, people who write fiction, theatre directors. They are all trying to bring these curious organisms into their art. It's a very exciting time."
Dr Pouliot said there were lots of reasons people were increasingly interested in fungi.
"It's finally become part of our consciousness that biodiversity isn't just flora and fauna," she said.
"People are increasingly aware that fungi plays this incredibly important role in recycling organic matter and transporting nutrients.
"But other factors have contributed, like the lockdown. People were spending more time closer to home and looking for activities like growing...mushrooms."
Dr Pouliot will run multiple seminars in the region over the next month including in and around Bendigo.
The first takes place in Lockwood on Tuesday. Another will take place in Bendigo in April. Bookings are essential.
To learn more or reserve a place, click here.
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