Correlation Coefficients between Pine Mushroom Emergence and Meteorological Elements in Yangyang County, Korea

The relationships between pine mushroom emergence and meteorological factors were analyzed with three years (from 2003 to 2005) of measurement data at Yangyang site, in order to evaluate the effect of micrometeorological environment on pine mushroom production. fine mushroom was daily monitored and collected in the survey area during the its producing period (approximately one month). Pine mushroom production was highest in 2005 with the meteorological conditions of high temperature and frequent rainfalls in October. The production was lowest in 2004 due to dry conditions from mid September to late October, The meterological factors related to humidity (i.e., relative humidity, soil water content, and precipitation) were better correlated than those related to temperature (i.e., air and soil temperature, soil heat flux and solar radiation) with pine mushroom production. However, all of the correlation coefficients were statistically insignificant with values ranging from 0.15 to 0.46. Such poor correlations may be attributed to various other environmental conditions (e.g., topography, soil, vegetation, other fungi, the relationship between pine mushroom and pine forest) affecting pine mushroom production. We found that a mycelium requires a stimulation of low temperature (of three-day moving average) below , in order to farm a mushroom primordium which grows to pine mushroom after 16 days from the stimulation. We also found that the pine mushroom production ended when the soil temperature (of three-day moving average) fell below .