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Get an early start?


Feral Boy

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When I look at the picture my place is definetly in the 30-35F... when I zoom in it 25-30F... witch make more sens... there still 3 feets of snow here... the ground wont unfreeze until end of april...

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I'm pretty worried about what this season will bring. We've had an extremely mild winter here and the temps are well above normal. The daffodils have budded and we have crocus blooming outside. We are a few weeks ahead of schedule. Hopefully this won't throw off the morel season.

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For what soil depth is the soil temp map computed? For my home the zoom-in on the temp map says 35-40F. The surface of the ground in my yard is frozen. But a few inches down the soil temp may actually be in the 35-40 range. The daffodils started poking greens up around the end of January. We've also got chives coming up.

Difficult to say what effect this warm winter will have on the morels. My records show a year --I forget, maybe 2004 or 2005-- when the winter was pretty mild and mainly snow-free but there was a good black morel crop that following spring. We haven't been getting much precip here. I suspect that if the current local weather pattern persists into spring, then it may be a down year for morels.

Hopefully we don't get a spell of really warm weather in March or early April... say 80sF or higher. Not only does this tend to dry/warm the ground too soon/quickly, which then sets up the morels for a cold-weather setback (which had happened here in both 2009 and 2010), but it also sets up a lot of other things for a similar setback. This past spring was the first since 2008 that we got any apples on our trees. In 2009 and 2010 we had early heat waves in March/April followed by sub-freezing temps during the first week of May. The apple blossoms had come and gone prematurely, and the tiny apples all froze. In 2010 the leaves on our wild grape vines also froze. They did come back later in the summer, but this stresses out the plant, and I'd imagine would contribute to a big problem at a vineyard.

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We got about 4" of snow the other day and another 3" or so last night. Our winter hasn't been that mild, although we didn't have any snow for a long time. No sign of crocus or daffodils here yet. Buttercups on the South facing slopes are usually the first sign of Spring. Earliest I've seen them is Feb 21. I'm definitely not going to see any until this snow melts.

Just starting to get the itch... April 2 is my earliest Eastern WA morel.

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We've had a very mild winter here too, but precipitation seems to be picking up. Another thing is concerning me this year that I'd like to seek the advice of other forum members on. We had an extreme flood in the Missouri River valley last summer. This is my main hunting ground. It seemed to bode well at first due to all of the newly dead cottonwoods that line the river, but much of the river bottom received heavy silt deposits, in some places feet thick. I'm not sure if the mushrooms will be able to push through this sand. Do you guys think that this will have an adverse effect on the morel season here?

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We've had a very mild winter here too, but precipitation seems to be picking up. Another thing is concerning me this year that I'd like to seek the advice of other forum members on. We had an extreme flood in the Missouri River valley last summer. This is my main hunting ground. It seemed to bode well at first due to all of the newly dead cottonwoods that line the river, but much of the river bottom received heavy silt deposits, in some places feet thick. I'm not sure if the mushrooms will be able to push through this sand. Do you guys think that this will have an adverse effect on the morel season here?

Same thing happened on the Mississippi south of St. Louis last year. Went out there recently & there's some greenery pushing through, so it may be all right there. I've always wondered how long it would take for an area to recover after silting.

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OK, it's definitely an off season already. The daffodils are blooming and I just found a large toad outside my front door. I think we are at least 3-4 weeks ahead in southern PA. I really hope that we at least get some decent rain. Last year was the opposite. Very cold and rainy so there weren't many blacks. The forecast is for highs in the 70s all week. We are going out this weekend to start hunting.

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A morel in PA on March 12...? The daffodils in our yard sent up shoots around the end of January. Looking at old records of mine, I see a few mild winters that were followed by decent frutings of blacks. Tough to make any kind of prediction when the weather is so weird. Temps up here in NE PA are predicted to top out in the 60s for the next 10 days, with lows mainly in the 40s... nice range for mid-April... Looks like we're gonna be praying for rain around here.

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A morel in PA on March 12...? The daffodils in our yard sent up shoots around the end of January. Looking at old records of mine, I see a few mild winters that were followed by decent frutings of blacks. Tough to make any kind of prediction when the weather is so weird. Temps up here in NE PA are predicted to top out in the 60s for the next 10 days, with lows mainly in the 40s... nice range for mid-April... Looks like we're gonna be praying for rain around here.

We've had a ton of rain here and the temps are well into the 70's today, after being consistently in the mid-high 60's all week. I live in northern IL, and these conditions are of the late-May norm for us. I couldn't help myself, I went and nosed around a few spots, saw nothing (not even any baby pheasant backs, and those are usually the first things I see.) But I'm going to go wander around this weekend. You know. Just to see what I can see. Get some fresh air. You know. ;)

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I poked around in the woods a bit today myself. There are a few bloodroot coming up and I saw two mayapple spikes in a small patch of bare soil that were not even half an inch. These are things I normally see the first days of April. Gobal warming or just the natural cycle of nature that none of us are old enough to forecast? Either way, it is very strange to me.

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I saw some buttercups a few days ago. They're the first wildflowers to come out around here. The earliest I've seen them is Feb. 21, a couple years ago. Still no crocus. I'd say that's about the norm for us. There are lots of years when things are much earlier blooming. I'm still a month away from having any hope of finding morels. Around here, if it isn't warm enough to have dandelions blooming in people's yards around town it sure as heck isn't warm enough for morels in the hills outside of town.

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