Future looks bright...

[Dave W]

or maybe I should say, rainy.

After the cold spell reduced the black morel output to a couple handfuls,

And the subsequent dry spell kept the numbers down on the small forest yellows ("deliciosas", Morchella diminutiva),

I'm ready to fill some bags with morels! I think the rainy spell that's coming through the next few days will be well-timed for the elm/apple yellows.

[The Vault Dweller]

Yeah for Northeast Pennsylvania the previous 30 days have seen about 1/3 the normal rainfall. It's supposed to rain all, but one day the next seven days for a total amount of rain more than double the average week. I look forward to going out seven days from now or after.

I actually skipped going this week due to the dry conditions meaning I'll found probably nothing.

[Dave W]

Chris, there are some areas along the eastern slopes of the Poconos that are potential morel spots. Look for forests where old-growth tulip poplar is the dominant tree, dead elms, or dying apple trees. However, be cautious about collecting morels in old apple orchards, especially very large ones where the apples had been a major cash crop. For about 80 years lead-arsenate had been used as a pesticide in many of the large apple orchards, and now some of these areas are potential "super fund" sites due to lead/arsenic poisoning. Morels are known to uptake such substances. I use a lead-test kit to check for high lead levels in the soil. (Arsenic content is much more difficult to test.)

Atop the Pocono Plateau the soil is generally too acidic for morels.

[bobby b]

I hear on the news that there's a large fire in pike/monroe counties. I think that's Dave's neck of the woods. Sounds like it could be an interesting area for morels next year if eastern morels respond like some western morels do. ????

[Dave W]

I've never found a morel in an eastern burn site, and I have checked. I think the way the western burns work is that the Morchella fungi enjoy long-standing symbiotic relationships with various healthy coniferous trees, and the fruiting in burn sites is the result of the fungus responding to its host/partner being damaged. The species of Morchella that comprise the various "fire morels" are not known to occur in eastern North America.

But, I don't want to rule out the possibility that some of eastern species may respond to fire. I would say that if the burnt Pocono forest includes stands of tulip poplar, or maybe white pine, then maybe it's worth checking next year. It's a very large piece of woods burning there right now.

[1shotwade]

A few years ago we had a fire in an area we knew produced morels for us every year. The fire was in Feb and in late April we found a very few blacks where the fire had been. It was also right in the middle of where we always had a lot of blacks. The next year and years following have never been as good as before the fire.

Wade

[vitog]

The timing of the fire is important for morel production. A fire in February is definitely too late for morels in the same year and possibly too early for morels in the following year. In the Pacific Northwest the fire season is usually in the summer and fall, and those fires produce lots of morels the following spring. It would be interesting to check an eastern forest with known morel production in the spring following a summer or fall fire. That current fire in PA might be a little early but should still be worth checking if the right trees are being burned.

[Tasso]

The only place East of the Rockies that I'm aware of with burn site morels is Upper Michigan. For more on this, see this thread: http://www.wildmushroomhunting.org/index.php/topic/2207-burn-site-morels-east-of-the-rockies/

[eat-bolete]

I had my doubts but...there they are, my first morels ever, extremely excited to find these in NY, in my 2nd year of mushroom hunting, feeling very accomplished right now...Will have to check in a week, maybe more will grow, lots of rain is coming...found under tulip trees.

[CajunShroomer3578]

Very nice eat bolete !! I'm excited for ya, I know how bad you have been wanting to find some. I felt your pain. I'm pretty convinced I won't find in Louisiana. Oh well .... Plenty of other choice edibles to be found. No complaints here. Congrats!!

[eat-bolete]

Thanks CajunShroomer3578. That's one great tasting mushroom. Didn't have enough for a meal, but that's fine, still super happy.

[Dave W]

Nice work eat-bolete! Did you find these on Long Island? (Not that I want to rob your spots :-) I have read that morels are rare on LI. Those look like young large Tulip Tree Morels. I think you may find a few more this coming week.

[troutddicted]

Great job eat bolete - happy for your success brother. You are one very passionate and dedicated shroomer - Im hoping a huge flush appears for you

[eat-bolete]

Thanks guys.

Dave, not Long Island unfortunately, I'll try to go look there this week sometime...I only know 1 park in LI though where tulips grow and that's the one I recently wrote about, where I haven't seen any shrooms last year. These were found in Westchester. I hope they stay around for a few more weeks to give me a chance to find more:)

[1shotwade]

There are some youtube clips about raising morels and the span is available.If I were just starting out I think it would be worth it to get some and seed an area (hopefully on MY property) Where I could visit it daily so I could keep info about the progression of growth and temps and rain and sun etc. I'd venture to say in a couple years you would be teaching some of us old timers stuff about morels we didn't know!

Wade

[1shotwade]

EB check this one out!

Wade

[Dave W]

Interesting that the one guy, David Danz, is trying to grow morels in his yard using what he calls a "spore kit". I thought the morel kits consisted of inoculated substrate saturated with mycelium. I have tried two kits on my property, with no morels. But I did not put in all the work that Danz has. And, after planting the one kit, we had a terrible drought that summer. I was away from home for two weeks during the worst of it. So the patch didn't get watered. It'll be interesting to see what Danz gets. But it should be noted that his yard is in Indiana... prime yellow morel territory. I think one important feature is the ph level in the soil. We have fairly acidic soil here in eastern North America. The mid-West is morel country.

The nice morels being picked by the kids in the first video are the result of seeding using a slurry. The guy uses fresh morels as the main active ingredient in the slurry. I have tried slurries --not nearly to the extent of attention to detail as seen in the video-- without positive results.

At least some types of morels are believed to have both a mycorrhizal life stage and a saprobic life phase. The saprobic phase is when most of the mushrooms are likely produced. The large fruitings of yellows in old apple orchards or under recently dead elms is probably not the result of spores that happened to find their way into the spot at just the right time. I think a more likely explanation is that the Morchella fungus had been coexisting with the apple/elm trees for many years, and while the tree was healthy little or no mushrooms were produced. The prolific flushes occur when the tree dies or begins to die and the fungus reacts by tapping nutrients from the tree roots and devoting stored energy to reproduction. It's possible that at this stage the formerly mycorrhizal fungus transitions into a saprobe that feeds upon the dead/dying roots of the tree. The morels being cultivated in the videos are clearly the result of a saprobic fungus. I doubt these cultivated patches are sustainable beyond say, two years worth of mushrooms. So the slurry/kit/spore sowing would need to be repeated on an annual basis in order to keep the morels coming. This is my guess, not based upon documentation or personal experience.

What I like to call "forest morels" appear to generally fruit from a Morchella fungus that is in the mycorrhizal phase of life. These occur most often near healthy trees... poplar, tulip poplar, ash, apple, cherry, pine among others. For these types to fruit, just the right conditions need to be present... soil temp within a desirable range (maybe 52-65F), trees just about to leaf out, and recent rainfall. Remove one ingredient and you may expect to see very few of these morels. The blacks seem to work like this (although blacks appear to also have the ability to function as a saprobe; people get them in compost heaps, wood chips, and other such habitat). The forest yellows (Morchella diminutiva, "deliciosas", tulip morels") seem to function mainly as the product of a mycorrhizal fungus. These are the most finicky. There's also a large yellow morel that fruits in healthy forests. Eat-bolete, I think the ones you posted are this type.

The ones pictured below were all found 4/30/16 under white ash trees. The same forest contains many mature tulip poplar trees, and there have been other years when they fruited in the same area only under the tulip poplar. Ash trees tend to leaf out 7-14 days after the tulip poplar. So I think this is an example of the timing thing I mentioned above for the "forest morels"

.

[1shotwade]

Whow! Where to start? Lot's to respond to!I like the idea of the slurry but have no idea how reliable it would be. My closest experience would be the fact that I ALWAYS rinse my finds in cold water first off. That is then used as seeding here at the house. Every year a different area. The only area to produce has been under an old living poplar.I got a harvest the second year,then again in years 6 and 7 . I have no Idea why there were no shrooms in the other years. The rinse was a combination of yellow and what we call spikes,no blacks,and only yellows were there to harvest in those years. I find this interesting considering I have about 120 ash here on my 3 acres but do not get a flush from any of them even though they had been seeded.This was not sterile water and I do the same with the salt brine I use in the next rinse but don't get a flush from those sights either.

I believe you are correct about the different responding flushes as my mother has an apple orchard that is from the 60's and we have never found a shroom in it. On the other hand she has 2 young apple trees in the front yard 150 yards away that produce yellows every year. Usually 2-3 but last year she found 5.On the similar note,I found a new spot(45acre woods) 10-12 years ago. Lot's of ash and poplar.First year we found 2-5 big yellows around just about every ash. We have not found one since that time.A couple years of checking this place I found a nice flush under a huge poplar and every other year since it has produced 10-20 yellows.

We just got 2"+ rainfall this week and the sun is bright at 83* right now. This would be the perfect time to get into that woods. I will not be able to do that though. Because of a health condition As of this time I can only walk 20-30 feet without resting and it's just too far to get there and walking conditions are rough once I'm in that woods.I am scheduled for surgery this week and have the potential of up tp 6 surgeries over the next 6 months and could be laid up longer than that.So my shroom hunting for this year is limited to areas I can get to on the atv !(Lazy man's hunt)LOL !Once in the woods though I can hunt at a slow pace and enjoy it but that will end this week. I guess y'all will be hearing either a lot more or a lot less of me after this week so go get'm y'all. I'll at least be lurking here admiring all your finds!

Wade

[Dave W]

Best of luck to you, Wade. Hope you're back out in the woods asap!

[1shotwade]

Well thanks Dave. Me too but only time will tell.Modern medicine has saved my bacon a few times already so I figure I'm living on borrowed time anyway. When God calls me home who am I to argue.

Wade

[Dave W]

It's only a matter of time for any of us, Wade. All one can do is try to make the best of the time one has.

One correction to my previous post! Although some mushroom grow kits consist of substrate inoculated with mycelium, I think (at least some of) the morel kits are different, in that they consist of sclerotia embedded in soil. A sclerotum is mass of fungal material that is a precursor to the fruit body (mushroom). Not all fungi utilize sclerotia. But morels do.

[eat-bolete]

Still renting, maybe one day, when I have propetty, will try the slurry.

I made a big mistake by not looking for tulips and ashes in the parks in Long Island last summer, now it's biting me in the ***, as I'm really bad at identifying trees by bark and most leafs are not out yet.

Discovered some burn sites but it seems they are 5-10 years old , or even more, as there are pretty big trees there that do not appear to have any burn marks at all, mostly pines with a few oaks and poplars in between, found nothing there.

Temps are still in low 50s. Does that mean morels will be around until it gets hot, which means at least 2-3 weeks, or the season will end regardless?

Wade, best of luck to you, hope everything goes well.

[eat-bolete]

Here are some images of the burn site. Is there a chance you think morels might grow there?

[Dave W]

If the burn site is 5-10 years old, then fire-induced morels are unlikely. They occur first or second year after the fire. I doubt fire morels would be found in an eastern NA burn. But this looks like possibly a pine forest, so... who knows?

The chilly weather has slowed down the morels. They may start up again after a sunny/warm day or two. Moisture levels are good. But, the hardwood trees seem to be pretty well leafed out. So the trees/moisture/warmth timing may be of this year. But I think later this week and next week may be good for the large yellows.

[vitog]

I don't know about eastern locations, but burn morels where I gather them in the Pacific Northwest are most productive under pine trees. However, as Dave pointed out, they are typically available in quantity only during the year after the burn. Any time I've checked out a burn in the second year after the fire, the morels are few and far between.