Unexpectedly, forest mushrooms cost millions of dong/kg, people carry lights to pick them from dawn

This fungus is red in color, usually grows a lot after the rain is over and only grows for 1 week/month, how many traders go to the forest to pick it up and buy it all there.
Considered as one of the precious specialties of Lang Son, in recent years, around May-June of the solar calendar, traders from all over the provinces have flocked to the forests of Lang to collect Cheo mushrooms.

To buy a lot of mushrooms, traders are willing to eat and sleep every week in the villages. Indigenous people also earn millions of dong a day by picking mushrooms. Mushroom Cho is red, umbrella-shaped, growing under the canopy of Che or Chestnut trees. Just before 7 am, Mr. Vi Van Chung, residing in Bac Lang commune, Dinh Lap district (Lang Son) picked two baskets full of red mushrooms. On the surface, they are no different from poisonous mushrooms, but this is a fungus that is considered by the locals here as “red gold”. If lucky, each person can earn millions of dong a day by picking mushrooms. According to Mr. Chung, this is a type of mushroom that grows under the canopy of Che or Chestnut trees, which is red, umbrella-shaped, fragrant, delicious and has a medicinal taste, so it’s called Che mushroom. To pick the most and most delicious mushrooms, he had to carry a flashlight into the forest 5km from his house at 2-3 am to pick. Mushrooms that have not yet expanded are considered to be class 1 mushrooms, the most valuable. The red mushroom is very easy to mistake for a poisonous mushroom, so people only pick this mushroom under the canopy of the Cheo tree or the chestnut tree. “For houses with Che or Chestnut forest, each mushroom season, they have to set up a tent in the middle of the forest to look after mushrooms and avoid being stolen. When picking, you also have to hold the mushroom body, lift it slightly or rotate it slightly to avoid breaking, stamping and losing the chalk layer on the mushroom cap to sell at a high price, “said Chung. Holding each mushroom like an umbrella, Mr. Chung said that the mushrooms usually grow in the early morning, so the mushrooms are picked from 4 am to 8 am, umbrella-shaped, not yet enlarged, on the hat still intact. The chalk layer is purchased at the highest price, about 300-350,000 VND/kg. If you go late, you will only be able to pick the mushrooms that have expanded or broken, broken, not intact, sold for 150-200,000 VND/kg. A house with a forest of Che or a forest of chestnuts can harvest tens of kilograms of mushrooms every day. In order to collect the most mushrooms, people have to carry their lamps into the forest from dawn or set up tents to sleep in the forest to watch the mushrooms grow. As a trader who buys Cheo mushrooms from people around Van Quan district (Lang Son), Mr. Luu Van Truong, residing in Na Loc village, Tu Xuyen commune, said that the price of fresh mushrooms he purchased was about 200,000 VND on average /kg fresh mushrooms. “After I bought it, I dried it and sold it to a Chinese trader for about 1.5 million VND/kg. On average, every 5-6kg of fresh mushrooms, dried in 6-7 hours will get 1kg of dried mushrooms,” Truong shared. According to Mr. Truong, this fungus usually grows in the summer and only blooms within 1 week/month, their life cycle only lasts 1-2 days and then rots very quickly, so traders often take advantage of the blooming time. , go to buy and then dry, preserve and sell to Chinese traders. Dried Choi mushrooms are purchased by Chinese traders at the price of 1.5-2 million VND/kg. According to Truong, in the past, people around the area often took advantage of their time to go to the fields, go to the forest to pick mushrooms, eat, and make food for their daily meals. However, in the past few years, Choo mushrooms have been sought by traders at high prices to export to China. Therefore, every time in the mushroom season, people rush to pick mushrooms to sell to traders. “If a house has a forest of Cheo, a forest of chestnut trees, if they can keep mushrooms from being stolen, they can harvest about 3-4 times/crop. At the most, someone can pick 20kg of mushrooms/day, selling 4-5 million VND,” Truong revealed.