Will 2026 Be A Bumper Year?
By Daniel Butler, author and forager
What makes for a great mushroom season? The simple answer is that in most cases we don’t really know. This is because every species has complex links with their host or substrate. In particular, most edible species have symbiotic ectomychorrhizal relationships with a plant host. This means the mushroom sheaths the plant’s roots with its mycelia. These send out thread-like hyphae into the surrounding soil and leaf mould to collect nutrients which are funnelled back into the tree in exchange for sugars and water.
Not every year produces big hauls of prize species (Photo: Author’s Own)
This means we don’t know how to recreate conditions with sufficient accuracy to make cultivation possible for most edible fungi. This means the vast majority have to be collected from the wild.
But seasons vary wildly from year to year and from species to species. For example 2024 was appalling for porcini, but last year was one of the best ever. On the other hand, 2022 was wonderful for chanterelles, but disappointing for porcini.
What was going on? And how will this autumn pan out?
It barely rained in Wales for six months from March until late August (PIcture: Author’s Own)
When it comes to pastoral and ‘scrub’ fungi, the weather immediately before a foray is undoubtedly critical to fruiting. The mycelia are wrapped around shallowly buried roots of grass and shrubs. They rely on damp conditions to boost their hosts’ growth and to produce their own fruiting bodies. Thus this year’s drought over most of Britain has resulted in a dearth of chanterelles and field mushrooms. This may change with the recent rain, but in many cases it may be too little, too late.
Normally abundant field mushrooms struggle to grow in drought (Photo: Author’s Own)
Many woodland mushrooms are insulated from this because their their hosts are deep-rooted. More importantly, in a dry, sunny, year, such as 1976 or 2025, the trees produced lots of surplus sugars, but the droughts meant they struggled to turn these into timber. Meanwhile the fungi wrapped around their roots tapped into plentiful sugars. When the rains finally arrived, the timing was perfect for the mycelia to turn these into mushrooms.
Fingers crossed for the autumn of 2026! (Photo: Author’s Own)
It is, of course, impossible to predict with confidence that this will be another bumper year, but so far the omens are good because the hot dry weather over the past six months has replicated the two drought years above.