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Ducks n' Morels

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  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    SW IL
  • Interests
    Mushroom hunting, foraging, weather, disc golf, hunting and wingshooting, trap/skeet shooting

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  1. Nice finds everyone! Congrats on your first big haul Tamera, it's exciting to come across a nice patch, eh? Things are wrapping up quick around here, the undergrowth is getting thick and the yellows are rotting w/ all this moisture. It's been a pretty good season, not a bumper crop but a decent one. Most of my finds have been spotty, you'll walk and walk and not find a thing then hit the jackpot in one area that fills your bag. I don't think soil temperatures ever warmed enough in a lot of spots to really produce well. Overall though, it's been a good season, I've picked just shy of 20 pounds locally! Last time I went out I found some monster bigfoot yellows and ended up pulling about 4 pounds off one large dead elm. It was a sight to see! The giant one is the biggest I've found by far, and weighed in at a half-pound!
  2. Yeah, I always find my first blacks just as the mayapples unfurl, and the dandelions start blooming in yards. Those seem to be the most reliable indicators. This season some of the indicators, especially the blooming trees and shrubs such as redbud, apple, and lilac are well ahead of the woods this season. But the dandelions were right on schedule!
  3. Great find, thanks for sharing! We've gotten plenty of rain so far around STL, eh? I got pretty worried after the wind and low RH earlier in the week, red flag warnings are never good leading up to or during the morel season! But things are looking up for sure after this morning's heavy rain. Good luck this season!
  4. I found my first morels yesterday! First I stumbled across a little 3 pack of fresh greys under a dead elm, then I found my early patch that had 6 blacks in it. The black patch is a bed of geodes with a large white ash right in the middle of it, it's a really cool spot! The blacks grow from under the rocks and geodes which warm in the sun. It's looking like a great season around here, with plenty of moisture so far. We had a half inch earlier in the week, which got wiped out by two days of high wind and low RH. But we got a tenth yesterday morning, and another half inch this morning. We're supposed to get more tomorrow evening, and more next week. Temperatures look perfect after this weekend, which has been very warm to get things going quick. Good luck this season everyone!
  5. It's hard to mistake shaggies from other Coprinus sp. due to their marked size and shaggy appearance. I could see where someone could mistake them when they are over-mature and turning black, but you wouldn't want to eat them at that stage anyway. As far as Mica caps, I find massive fruitings of them every Spring during morel hunts at the base of primo looking dead elms. I'm always disappointed when I find them, because I've never seen morels fruit off an elm that has the Mica fungus. I've heard they are watery and pretty tasteless anyway, has anyone here eaten them?
  6. I had my dream hunt two seasons ago on a morel hunt in NW IL. Me and a friend(who guided me in his spectacular patch of old growth dead elm woods) picked 26 pounds of primo morels in a day's hunt! It was a religious experience.
  7. Hey, I know exactly where your Oyster patch is, FB! I'm headed that way now w/ a spotlight! J/K, heh, but I really DO know where that spot is and have found oysters there myself as well as a nearby spot near a nearby refuge, wink wink. Glad you found some stranglers, I completely gave up on fall mushrooms this season... At least the duck hunting has been good!
  8. BTW, wrapping the "burrito" in saran wrap may have prevented enough gas exchange for rapid, healthy myc growth. Did you poke any holes in it or leave the ends open? Mushrooms need oxygen just like us!
  9. Great to have you here Olga. You guys seem to have quite the operation out your way! Duff, if you have lots of compost to work with, might want to consider using that along w/ cardboard in your "well" experiment. Layer of moist cardboard, layer of colonized cardboard, layer of compost, repeat. Blewits have an affinity for compost, so I think it would be a good addition. They aren't a completely wood-loving species, so you might not get fruits from just plain cardboard...
  10. You've definitely managed to get some mycelium colonizing that cardboard! You are right, it would have been better to let it grow out for a longer period, but you have a time constraint due to the weather conditions. I think you probably made the right decision, so that it can start to get a hold in the patch you've created. Good luck, I hope this turns out well for you! I wasn't aware that you could cultivate Blewits, so this is a nice project...
  11. I would have put money on that being a black-stainer... I also thought the large fronds were a tell-tale sign, as well as the margins turning black. One way to tell the difference is to take a frond and pull it apart. If it separates cleanly, it's a hen, and if it separates w/ stringy pieces it's a black stainer. I haven't found much around here, but then again I haven't had much reason to go out. We haven't had any rain in 12 days. I did find a couple hens on one tree over the weekend, but it was burnt by the low RH. The day-time RH has been consistently in the ~30% range pretty much this whole month. I'm hoping the rains will show up at least in time for the cool season Oysters...
  12. I hear ya, the bugs were just as bad as the allergies this year. What a summer it was...
  13. Haha, this is great, FB! I'm guessing this is this a bluegrass song? It's catchy!
  14. Hey guys, good to see you all again! A big thanks to Mary and the others for getting this up and running, it's much appreciated! We've had over 3" of rain so far this September w/ cool and damp weather forecast, so I'm looking forward to a potentially great Fall 'shroom season...good luck all!
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