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The Morels are Coming...The Morels are Coming....


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Spring is springing up all over the country albeit a bit early this year, which means morels are already a popping in parts of the country. If you are one of the lucky ones who have already found morels, we want to see them! The Spring "skin" is up so let's get springy! Remember, please keep your photo sizes to less than 2 MB please so we don't run into server space issues like we did last year. Have fun, be safe and let's see your purty mushrooms!

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I just checked Matherly's site and they are coming up in Ohio and one report in MD. That means it's about time here in southern PA. Gonna try to check our spot tomorrow morning if we have time. I have to work from 11-5. If not tomorrow, then Sunday. I think we'll find at least a few small ones. I went the other day to check the woods and the bloodroot is already starting to come up and saw a couple mayapple spikes. Everything is blooming including forsythia. It's gotta be time. But, it's so early. Just the opposite of last year.

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We stopped by the woods for a quick look and found our first small black of the year, about an inch tall and three weeks ahead of schedule. No time to load it onto the computer now. Have to work today. I'll post a pic later.

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Yes, Bill, I think you have a ways to go until morel season. But you have longer seasons for a lot of mushrooms later in the year that I wish we could come close to. Here are the pics of our first morel this year. I hope I have things set right that I don't exceed the pic size for the forums. I know that some people want proof of the date. But I didn't have anything with the date on it. If you are one of those people, I can take a dated photo.

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Wow, a PA morel in mid March! Nice job Evan. Even with all the warmth, this is a surprise. I guess I need to start looking in a week or so. I expect to break my previous personal record for earleist morel, April 6 (2006).

Went into the woods a couple times these alst few days. No Devil's Urns. We could use some rainfall. There is some in the forecast. As long as we don't get a specll of freezing weather --not in the forecast-- and it doesn't get really hot/dry, then there could be a nice long stretch of fruitings of blacks.

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DS, I agree. I love hunting mushrooms because it is a great excuse to spend time outside. We had just over an hour of light rain this afternoon, so Harmony and I are going to the woods when I pick her up from school tomorrow. I figure we will find a few more.

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We found six morels and a spring peeper. Most of them were less than an inch, but there was one decent sized one. We also got a nice rain shower that soaked the ground, so they should be better by the weekend. I'll keep you guys posted.

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Only one small one today. I really thought we would find a few larger ones after the rain the other day. Of course, there was more climbing on rocks and collecting leaves than actual morel hunting. Plus, we were only there for an hour.

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Checked one early spot that's nearby our home. Some nice fresh Urnula craterium gave hope of the morels starting up next week.

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At the other spot the hepaticas gave me that feeling of morels being up.

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Earliest of the early patches had 5 morels. 3-23 beats the old record earliest by 13 or 14 days (need to check the date).

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Mild winter has been just what the ticks ordered. Record numbers of those around here. Karen and I must've killed 40-50 and we didn't even set foot in the areas traditionally favored by ticks (since about 1999... before that there were none!). First thing I did when we got home was to spray the morel-hunting clothes with Permanone.

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Dave, it looks like you may be ahead of us this year. Those blacks look like they have had some sun exposure already. Ours haven't darkened yet. And the hepaticas here were barely starting to open the other day.

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Dave, it looks like you may be ahead of us this year. Those blacks look like they have had some sun exposure already. Ours haven't darkened yet. And the hepaticas here were barely starting to open the other day.

Yeah... go figure!? I'm well over 100 north of you.

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We found another 22 today. A few are starting to get a little size to them, but most are still pretty small. The freeze we are supposed to get tomorrow night has me a little worried that any morels that are exposed will be damaged or die. Most of the rest of this week is supposed to be cooler, also, which will slow them a bit I think. That's fine with me, though.

I'm pretty busy the next week with family coming to visit over the weekend, so I won't have much time to get out there.

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Evan, I wouldn't worry too much about the chilly temps headed your way. Forecast for your area mentions a low of 31 on Tuesday. My personal records indicate that, once the blacks start coming, a couple of mornings in the high 20s doesn't seem to stop them. The ones that are already up may get their tops frozen just a bit. Usually just trimming the very tip of the cap is all that's necessary.

Here in NE PA temps are forecast to drop to 22F Tuesday morning. I think this may be cold enough to adversely affect some of the potential morels. If it doesn't remain below freezing for more than a few hours it may be okay. Highs are still supposed to get into the 50s for the next several days.

What we really need here is rain. Very little has fallen here during this month.

Checked our best area today --where we got the ones the other day-- and found no more.

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easternWA, check out this other recent report of a "young black morel" in PA.

http://mushroomobserver.org/90861?q=ChBd

As far as I know, there are at least several different DNA species of North American morel. But I don't know if the eastern NA Black Morel(s) is/are considered to be different from the western one(s). Young "blacks" that are very pale have occasionally been called "grays", which of course leads to a lot of confusion. I think the really pale ones have spent most of their formative days hiding underneath the leaves.

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eaternWA, these are blacks. These were found while still young just after they broke through the leaf litter and the sun hadn't darkened them yet. My experience with blacks is that they get the black ridges after a day or two of sunlight.

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Here's some results from our April 1 foray. We were going to check a few more spots that required another mile of walking, but some rain chased us out of the woods.

Some nice mature blacks.

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New record earliest grays/yellows. Some of us like to call these small forest morels "deliciosas".

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Results of 2 hours in the woods.

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The competition.

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Well, yesterday was indeed Good Friday! A very good Friday, in fact!

A friend's boyfriend has been finding troves of morels at his cabin in southern IL. He very kindly brought me some, so I enjoyed my first taste earlier this week. However, it's been pretty chilly here (McHenry CO IL)for the last week, and we've even had some light frost. So I wasn't planning so sally forth anytime soon. Then came word from my friend that the boyfriend's son had found a slew of morels in Elgin, IL. Well, that is pretty dang close.

My 74 year old Mom is here for the weekend, and while she doesn't get around like she used to (she was hunting morels the weekend before I was born!) the idea of finding some excited her, so I plotted a little foray into some accessible areas. We found one in a wooded lot that had been cleared in a city park, then found nothing at the next spot. At the third and final spot, however, we got a really nice haul! Two dozen young and fresh yellows. I left a number of them in the wood to get a bit bigger, even.

SO here they are! We sauteed them up last night, and enjoyed them straight out of the pan and garnishing some asparagus risotto. Mom was just thrilled, and, as you might expect, the morels were absolutely delicious.

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