Czechs collected more than 6.6 billion crowns worth of mushrooms and fruits in the country’s forests in 2017. In all, people picked 41,300 tonnes, which is 1.5 billion tonnes more than in the previous year. The news was reported by the website e15.cz on Friday, citing the annual report by the Czech University of Life Sciences.

Photo: Martina Schneibergová

According to the report, mushroom picking remains hugely popular in the Czech Republic. It is estimated that Czechs harvested around 27,700 tonnes of mushrooms last year, which is about seven kilos per household, at a value 4.6 billion crowns.

Last year’s yields of the forest fungi were boosted by favourable weather conditions, which provided enough rain and humidity.

Apart from mushrooms, Czechs collected 7,100 tonnes of blueberries worth one billion crowns and 2,100 tonnes of raspberries and elderberries. They also picked 1,500 tonnes of blackberries and 400 tonnes of cranberries.

The highest forest yield to date was recorded in 1995, when Czechs collected 58,500 tonnes of mushrooms and other forest fruit.

Despite the increased amount of collected forest fruit, the number of Czechs spending time in the country’s forests has been decreasing in recent years, according to professor Luděk Šisák from the Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences.

According to the analysis, Czechs visited a forest on average twenty times a year, while in 2016, that number stood at 26.