CHITRAL, May 24: The people of Kalash valleys of Bumburate, Birir and Rumbur and Ayun village are these days earning money by collecting morel, a variety of mushroom, in the nearby forests where the season is in full swing.

Muhkam Ayuni, a development worker in Kalash valley, told Dawn here that the daily wage labourers and jobless youth of the valleys were now spending almost the whole day in forests in search of morel mushrooms.Morels grow in large number in deodar forests of the valleys with the advent of spring season and frequent rainfall provides them with congenial atmosphere, he said.

Mr Ayuni said that a person could pick half a kilogramme of morels during daylong struggle, which earned him over Rs1,500 as the fresh morel was being sold in the local market at over Rs3,000 a kilogramme.

Locally called Qochhi, morels grow in the deodar forests of southern part of the district while Chitral is believed to be the country’s third largest producer of morels after Swat and Hazara regions.

Shapir Khan of Birir valley said that he was jobless, but the season of mushrooms provided him with an opportunity to earn money and support his family.

“I go to the forests along with my sons, wife and daughter and forage morels there till the evening,” he said and added that the same was the case with other families of the valleys. A school teacher in Bumburate valley said that attendance in his school dropped during the season as a large number of students were sent to the forests by their families for collecting morels.

A shopkeeper in Bumburate valley, Ajmal Khan, said that they had been selling the dried up morels to non-local traders at around Rs19,000 per kilogramme.