As Diāna Meiere, an expert at the museum and the head of the Mycological Society, explained to LSM.lv, due to the severe drought the diversity of mushrooms is very low at the moment, so it has been decided not to "fool around" and to wait a bit longer.
Meire explained, "It hasn't rained for a while, it's very hot. This means that all the soil is drying out, and mushrooms need a lot of moisture to form. If you collect a kilo of porcini mushrooms, 900 grams of that is water. If it hasn't rained, this means that the mushrooms will continue to grow for a while after the rain stops, because the moisture has been retained, but by now the moisture reserves have been used up and the mushrooms will only grow on the edges of permanently wet areas. There is very little fungal diversity."
The mycologist explained that the museum usually boasts a large variety of mushrooms in the mushroom exhibition.
"But now it seems that the drought has hit the whole of Latvia, so we decided that we didn't want to be laughing stock, so to speak, and that it would be better to wait a little longer." Meiere said.
The mycologist said that there are hopes to still organize a mushroom exhibition, but not this week.
"If it starts to rain, we hope that the mushrooms will not leave us hanging. If the frosts don't come straight away, which the mushrooms don't like, we will still try to organize the mushroom exhibition, because the spot is reserved and we are very keen, because it is one of the biggest events of the year for us mushroom people at the museum."
The mushroom exhibition also had to be canceled in 2022, when mycologists initially failed to gather enough fungi to show visitors. However, it was eventually held at the end of September, but in a shortened version of two days, with 135 species of mushrooms.
Inita Dāniele, mycologist and head of the Museum's Botany Department, told LSM.lv at the time that she had been working at the Museum for almost 40 years, but has only seen the exhibition cancelled twice.
