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White mushroom (Boletus edulis)
- Division: Basidiomycota (Basidiomycetes)
- Subdivision: Agaricomycotina (Agaricomycetes)
- Class: Agaricomycetes (Agaricomycetes)
- Subclass: Agaricomycetidae (Agaricomycetes)
- Order: Boletales (Boletales)
- Family: Boletaceae (Boletaceae)
- Genus: Boletus
- Type: Boletus edulis (Cep)
Porcini (lat. Boletus edulis) is a mushroom from the boletus genus.
Hat:
The color of the cap of the porcini mushroom, depending on the growing conditions, varies from whitish to dark brown, sometimes (especially in pine and spruce varieties) with a reddish tint. The shape of the cap is initially hemispherical, later cushion-shaped, convex, very fleshy, up to 25 cm in diameter. The surface of the cap is smooth, slightly velvety. The pulp is white, dense, thick, does not change color when broken, practically odorless, with a pleasant nutty taste.
Leg:
The porcini mushroom has a very massive leg, up to 20 cm high, up to 5 cm thick, solid, cylindrical, widened at the base, white or light brown, with a light mesh pattern in the upper part. As a rule, a significant part of the leg is underground, in the litter.
Spore layer:
Initially white, then successively turns yellow and green. The pores are small, rounded.
Spore powder:
Olive brown.
Various varieties of white fungus grow in deciduous, coniferous and mixed forests from early summer to October (intermittently), forming mycorrhiza with various types of trees. Fruits in the so-called “waves” (in early June, mid-July, August, etc.). The first wave, as a rule, is not too abundant, while one of the subsequent waves is often incomparably more productive than the others.
Gall fungus (Tylopilus felleus)
in youth it looks like a white mushroom (later it becomes more like a boletus (Leccinum scabrum)). It differs from the white gall mushroom primarily in bitterness, which makes this mushroom absolutely inedible, as well as in the pinkish color of the tubular layer, which turns pink (unfortunately, sometimes too weakly) at the break with flesh and a dark mesh pattern on the leg. It can also be noted that the pulp of the gall fungus is always unusually clean and untouched by worms, while in the porcini fungus you understand …
Common oak tree (Suillellus luridus)
and Boletus eruthropus – common oaks, also confused with white fungus. However, it should be remembered that the pulp of the porcini mushroom never changes color, remaining white even in the soup, which cannot be said about the actively blue oaks.
By right it is considered the best of mushrooms. Used in any form.
Industrial cultivation of white fungus is unprofitable, so it is bred only by amateur mushroom growers.
For cultivation, it is necessary first of all to create conditions for the formation of mycorrhiza. Household plots are used, on which deciduous and coniferous trees are planted, characteristic of the habitat of the fungus, or natural forest areas are isolated. It is best to use young groves and plantings (at the age of 5-10 years) of birch, oak, pine or spruce.
At the end of the 6th – beginning of the 8th century. in Our Country, this method was common: overripe mushrooms were kept for about a day in water and mixed, then filtered and thus a suspension of spores was obtained. She watered the plots under the trees. Currently, artificially grown mycelium can be used for sowing, but usually natural material is taken. You can take a tubular layer of mature mushrooms (at the age of 20-30 days), which is slightly dried and sown under the soil litter in small pieces. After sowing, the spores can be harvested in the second or third year. Sometimes soil with mycelium taken in the forest is used as seedlings: a square area 10–15 cm in size and 1–2 cm deep is cut around the found white mushroom with a sharp knife. horse manure and a small addition of rotten oak wood, during composting, watered with a 3% solution of ammonium nitrate. Then, in a shaded area, a layer of soil is removed and humus is placed in 5-7 layers, pouring the layers with earth. Mycelium is planted on the resulting bed to a depth of XNUMX-XNUMX centimeters, the bed is moistened and covered with a layer of leaves.
The yield of white fungus reaches 64-260 kg/ha per season.