Morel (guchhi) mushroom spotted in Kullu

Abhinav Vashisht

KULLU, MARCH 29

A colony of three morchella esculenta or morel mushrooms, more commonly known as guchhi in this region, have popped up inside a house at Akhara in Kullu.

Neha, a housewife, said she spotted the guchhi in a room on the ground-floor of the house, used to store water in a tank. The three cream-coloured outgrowths were of about eight inches, she claimed.

The unearthing of the exotic edible mushroom inside a closed room, which otherwise is believed to exist in the wild, might provide new spheres to artificially sprout this costly delicacy. Besides its delicious and exotic taste, experts said the type was also rich in protein and other nutrients and was helpful in treating cancer.

While efforts had been made by researchers to artificially cultivate the edible fungus like other varieties of mushrooms, the morel cannot be grown and sprouts naturally in shady forest floors, orchards, yards and meadows in the middle and lower Himalayan region. As per local belief, the guchhi bursts from the ground during thunderstorms in spring season. A food, usually known for the painstaking hunt to harvest it in the forest, guchhi is a highly-priced delicacy in star category hotels across the world.

Scientists of the Directorate of Mushroom Research, a unit of the Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) in Solan and the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) in Kullu, had carried out various studies on cultivation technology of morel mushrooms.

The weather this year has been fruitful for its growth in many regions of the district and while the product is generally found from March to May, inquiries revealed that residents of many regions had been spotting the mushroom since February. The weather conditions had been moist and humid the entire winters as Kullu experienced around 6 cm snow after decades. The entire valley witnessed one of the wettest winters this year.

The morel of this region is in high demand and every year this rare wild mushroom incurs a business worth crores from this valley alone. The dried morel costs about Rs 10,000 per kg and artificial harvesting of this mushroom can provide commercially productive alternate to farmers of higher reaches of the state.