Oregon Public Broadcasting

The state’s national forests will open the commercial mushroom harvest Tuesday.

It may sound like fun, but it also means big business.

Central Oregon correspondent Ethan Lindsey reports.

Mushroom hunting season is here.

And for residents of Chemult, about an hour south of Bend, the next two months are pretty crazy.

Gidget Flanagan: “We go from a little old town of 150 people to well over 1000.”

Gidget Flanagan owns the Featherbed Inn in town.

Gidget Flanagan: “Mushroom season has become more dependable than our tourist season. It’s become that almost one-third of our annual revenue comes from these two months in mushroom season.”

All the pickers are in town to harvest Matsutake mushrooms, a delicacy in Japan. The fungi used to fetch $100-per-pound.

The price now is down to about $20-per-pound – but still high enough that the hunters will pay the Forest Service $200 for a commercial permit.

The season runs through November 8th.