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Tis the Season!


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Dave,

What I believe to be Fire Morels were found under burnt white pines. Pretty new to me. As I said before, I have never found clusters or any kind of close grouping of Morels before. Went back this past weekend and found some more... THIS time I took pictures. I will download them to get your opinion as soon as my husband comes back with my digital camera. It may be a while as I need to go care for my grandma (congestive heart failure) and my priorities have shifted. Nice to have the good things in life to take the edge off the bad.

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We have a friend who has extensive orchards and one block of peach trees always produces esculentas. I called him today to ask about hunting there and he said my mom and stepfather were there picking yesterday!! I can't believe they went without me!! That's OK. I walked seven rows and found 120 in less than three hours. And that's a day after they were there. Unfortunately, my antique computer is out of disk space, so I can't load the pics.

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Hope you all are OK after all the storms. St. Louis got hit pretty

bad up north, but our part of the city came through fine.

Glad everything's OK down there ! Up here, the last bit of snow in the woods is finally gone. Now all it has to do is warm up some and I think I'll be in business. I think we had more snow the last 3 weeks, then we had all winter. It's been raining every day & night since Saturday.

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My roommate and I went out to check one of our early spots and didn't find any Morels. She did find a small cluster of Oysters that I brought home. That prompted me to check my local oyster spot. I found some that were already grown and rotted or possibly were from last fall and just hydrated by the recent rain.

I must say all of this rain is a blessing. I have a feeling that it is going to be a great Morel year. Last year it was too warm too early and they emerged early and didn't have the numbers I had hoped for. This pre-season I am picturing lots of huge sclerotium (the ones that didn't fruit last year) soaking up this rain and growing to gargantuan sizes before blasting above ground.

I have found the Michigan Automated Weather Network very helpful. I picked it up at the old site and forget who posted it there, but thanks to whomever posted it first. Here is MAWN link- http://www.agweather.geo.msu.edu/mawn/ Temps are getting good and I need to get out there very soon.

Happy Hunting,

Blake

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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!

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Hey I finally found this place again. I forgot to update my old bookmark.

It has been a great morel season in MO. Been picking since April 1and with the cool weather have not stopped, though they are now getting big and starting to rot.

Are there any west coasters out there? I will be out in the northern Cascades and possibly around Mt Hood in OR the 2nd week of May and was hoping to try and find a nice fire burn. Not so much to pick, though I would grab some for supper, but more to get some good photos and videos of that phenomenon for my Missouri morel blog. I have heard the tales and I just got to documented it for all my Show-Me doubters.

If anyone can help, message me or feel free to email me mid.mo.mushrooms (at) gmail.com. Any info or tips would be greatly appreciated.

Also, when is king bolete season out there? That one is on the top of my list to find just one.

Thanks.

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Hey I finally found this place again. I forgot to update my old bookmark.

It has been a great morel season in MO. Been picking since April 1and with the cool weather have not stopped, though they are now getting big and starting to rot.

Are there any west coasters out there? I will be out in the northern Cascades and possibly around Mt Hood in OR the 2nd week of May and was hoping to try and find a nice fire burn. Not so much to pick, though I would grab some for supper, but more to get some good photos and videos of that phenomenon for my Missouri morel blog. I have heard the tales and I just got to documented it for all my Show-Me doubters.

If anyone can help, message me or feel free to email me mid.mo.mushrooms (at) gmail.com. Any info or tips would be greatly appreciated.

Also, when is king bolete season out there? That one is on the top of my list to find just one.

Thanks.

Hey ahistory! Nice to see you back again! Oregon has just not really started yet even on the riparian areas. Verpa's are being spotted but so far the weather has been cold and wet and they just haven't kicked in yet. People in Eugene are still waiting as are folks from Portland. You may be a bit early this year for fire morels. Usually in a "normal" year, you should be picking morels at least starting to, around May 8th up in the Cascade's around Sisters, OR. I think it will be much later this year. It has been a very cold year for Oregon and by now it should be warm and nice but it's still cold and wet. I don't know what to tell you. You can check on the message board at the Cascade Mycological Society at http://cascademyco.o...ewforum.php?f=1 and you will have up to the minute info from locals who are waiting patiently for something to happen. In a "normal" year, morels would have been being picked along the Santiam River in early to mid April and still nothing is happening this year yet.

Good luck to you! I think fire morels will be a long way off this year. Last year and the year before you would be possibly in them within a few weeks of this date but I don't think this year will be right. I hope for your sake I'm wrong though and you are able to find some. Good luck!

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Thanks for the info LadyFlyFish, it is not what I wanted to hear but was not unexpected. I know the CA season started late and the cool wet weather has made the season here last for over 5 weeks.

Too bad things are slow but them are the breaks. I might have to give up on the fire burns and just go see what others I can turn up. Haven't hunted a lot out west, so I am sure there will be a few others that I could add to my life list of finds.

Ill contact the mycologicazl society. Thanks again.

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Orchard esculentas are starting up around here. The ones seen in the bowl were collected around an apple tree that's been consistently producing some of the earliest ones for the past 4 years. I would have waited another day or two for them to mature a bit, but there was heavy rain in the forecast --we got about 2 inches-- and I figured the quality would suffer. Checking an elm spot tomorrow.

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Dave, You are killing me over there. We moved into a new house a month ago ,here in northern Mi.. The morels should have been fruiting 3 weeks ago, and still nothing. No verpas, Gyromitras, not'a. We have plenty of moisture but the temps. have been below freezing at night and in the 40's during the day. All the mushroom Festivals are this weekend too. I have a feeling that if it warms up we will have both Blacks and Whites fruiting together . Or perhaps, no Morels at all this year. Our dream house in "Michigan's Morel Belt" ain't panning out this year.

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Well, I wanted to post all the pics we have, but we're still trying to make space to download from the camera. These are the morels from Sat two weeks ago. We found twice as many the next day and they were much larger. They all came from my friends peach orchard. There were 120 the first day and over 250 the second day. I found a few more in the woods at work, but sadly, the season is now over for us. We might have found a few more, but we haven't had any rain.

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Nice haul Evan!

Jack, are you still getting the freezing temps at night up there in Michigan? Here in PA I have found that prolonged cold periods may result in smaller numbers of blacks, at least in the south-facing early slopes. But the yellows seem to wait for the warmth.

Our new local mushroom club had its first foray today. After spending about 10 minutes in the woods, one of our memebrs found some nice oysters on a dead aspen tree. Another guy went over to help him pick them, and he says, "morel!" The big old dead aspen had about 20 nice yellows --a few big ones. I know in some parts of North America morels are hunted around aspen, but this is the first time I've ever seen morels associating with a true poplar. (Tulip Poplar is actually in the Magnolia family.)

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Fire Morels cont...

Finally, I've got a picture to share of what I believe to be the Fire Morels. I made up a one-picture deal, as I have dial-up, and attachments take forever - especially if it's raining.

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Nice looking morels, Tamara. It looks like you have morchella conica which are the normal black fire morels. And the black stemmed ones might be fuzzy foot morels, at least that's what I think they're called.

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Thanks, Evan. Very interesting year. I went back today, a month after the first finds and found another 3/4 lbs. Rather Dry, but I plan on dehydrating them anyways. Wish I hadn't been out of state during their fruiting, but I am very happy to have found what I found. The black stemmed ones were probably just soot-dyed, as we had a ton of rain, and the ground around them was littered with charcoal under the pine needles. My husband found an interesting way of getting the cinders out: he sterilized the crevice tool of our ShopVac and was able to clean them more thoroughly, thus making the eating experience much more pleasant (no more teeth squeaks)!!

Anyone else find Fire Morels east of the Rockies? I was almost certain that Michael Kuo had stated that they didn't cross the Continental divide, but now I can't find where I read that. I agree, these look just like what I've seen online described as Morchella conica, only all the examples pictured were from western states.

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That was the Sleeper lake fire near Newberry. My friend, and many others, gathered hundreds of pounds, but they don't have any flavor. In fact, they taste awful. The morels were fruiting in burned Jack pine. I guess it's not really that uncommon of a thing, people find them in burns every year here.

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Nice haul Evan!

Jack, are you still getting the freezing temps at night up there in Michigan? Here in PA I have found that prolonged cold periods may result in smaller numbers of blacks, at least in the south-facing early slopes. But the yellows seem to wait for the warmth.

Our new local mushroom club had its first foray today. After spending about 10 minutes in the woods, one of our members found some nice oysters on a dead aspen tree. Another guy went over to help him pick them, and he says, "morel!" The big old dead aspen had about 20 nice yellows --a few big ones. I know in some parts of North America morels are hunted around aspen, but this is the first time I've ever seen morels associating with a true poplar. (Tulip Poplar is actually in the Magnolia family.)

Dave, I just saw your post today. It finally warmed up here. The Blacks were out in full force, and huge. But they only lasted about two weeks. The Whites are starting now and the same thing. They're huge. This past week was in the 70's and I think that's what brought the Blacks to a quick end. It's supposed to cool down to 60 for this week and more rain. I kind of got a little aggravated Sat. I hunted an area that is well known and State land. Lots of people out there and almost all were looking for Blacks . ( which on the most part are done ) All the people I talked to had some older Blacks ( no Grays or Whites ) To make a long story short. The people were walking on and smashing the Grays. These weren't that small that they couldn't see them, 3 to 4 inchers. Smashed Grays & Whites everywhere. I think they actually didn't know what they were or didn't think they were up yet. I went into some really thick areas to get away from the people, and ended up finding around 300 Grays & Whites . ( nice ones ) Also about 75 big Semiliberas.

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