37 years after the Chernobyl reactor catastrophe, some forest mushrooms in Bavaria are still radioactive. The concentration differs depending on the variety and location, said the Munich Environmental Institute on Wednesday. There you can have wild mushrooms, game and wild berries tested free of charge during the mushroom season from August to October. Southern Bavaria and the Bavarian Forest in particular were radioactively contaminated when the Soviet Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded in April 1986.
“While cesium-137 has already been washed out into deeper soil layers on agricultural land or is bound to minerals, the radioactive substance lasts longer in the forest and is strongly absorbed by the widely intertwined mycelium of some types of fungus,” explained Hauke Doerk from the Environmental Institute. For example, forest areas are still polluted in the Munich area or in areas of the Alps.
In the past few years, the Federal Office for Radiation Protection has found up to 4,000 becquerels per kilogram of fresh mass in some forest mushroom varieties. “600 becquerels per kilo are allowed in retail,” emphasized Doerk. The environmental institute has identified a particularly high level of contamination with chestnut boletes or stubble mushrooms, while porcini mushrooms and chanterelles have less radioactivity.
If you want, you can hand in 150 to 250 grams of sorted mushrooms, berries or game meat to the Environmental Institute in Munich for a measurement. The measurement results of the last years can be found on the homepage. Radiation can increase the risk of cancer in the long term.