EXPLOITATION OF FOREST PRODUCTIVITY THROUGH INCREASED MUSHROOM PRODUCTION

This paper attempts to demonstrate how a greater and more skilled fungal presence could increase the potential productivity of forest areas. In particular, we believe that the development of timely, silviculture-cared production could be an important part of forestry income. While interest in traditional forestry production (copice firewood) has gradually decreased, underwood products have become more and more economically important, in that the income of the local population harvesting these products has increased and that tourism in the form of town-dwellers has flourished. In the specific case of mushroom-growing forests, the main problem is to find a balance between silviculture and products of the underwood. using the silviculture techniques which particularly maintains mushroom production . The objective of production recovery work undertaken in boletus growing forests, is to increase productivity of the local mushrooms with naturally present mycorrhization characteristics. When faced with a forest which was once a strong producer of boletus but which has declined over the years, one works to restore the set of favorable environmental conditions for the development of carpophores; the long-term presence of mycorrhize and spores in the earth gives the forest this potential. It's therefore necessary to intervene the restore the edible forest to the condition required for the development of boletus. Analyzing the data on the gathering and commercialization of s from Borgotaro, which has been a particularly productive area over the last 30 years, it is declared to be a 4000ha site with an average yearly production of 15kg circa per hectare and an average value of 300,000 Itl. (Italian lire). In the boroughs of Rossana, Cuneo and Givoletto, Torino, the two farmers who manage the forest, principally, in order to gather boletus and who have exclusive right of entry to them, have had an average harvest of roughly 100kg per hectare over the last ten years. Their experience gives interesting and useful clues as to how it is possible to instill new economic interest in the management of producing forests through recovery of ecological balance and the consequent increase in the number of edible fungi.