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Nice finds! We're finally starting to warm up here in N IL. Sun and temps in the 60's, which brings me to a question - I know soil temp has a lot to do with fruiting. We're getting into the mid 60's during the day, but at night the temps are averaging in the mid-40's. I'm assuming this means I need to sit tight a while longer....Right?

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Fungrrl, difficult to say based upon a small amount of info. Days in the 60s and nights in the 40s sounds like good black morel conditions to me... but maybe a bit chilly for the yellows. Moisture levels are also important, and hours of bright sunshine. The ground warms up more quickly when there's plenty of sunshine. Weather during the previous week or so is important. Here in Pennsylvania, this morel season is developing very slowly.

I haven't used a soil thermometer, but I think next year I will. Seemed like our local weather was just right to get the black morels started, but the early flush has been way below average. I think it may be that there weren't enough sunny days to give the ground a quick warmup. So I'm wondering just what the soil temps have been for the past week or so around here. Generally, the claim is that 50F is the soil temp for which morels start to fruit. But I also think that one or two very warm and sunny days can really get them going because this is when the soil temp rises quickly.

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Hey everyone,

Glad people are getting some nice, delicious finds.

I'm planning on a hitting up a section of forrest tomorrow (44 square miles near Cle Elum, WA) that burned last year. From what I've read it looks like the ground temperature is around 52 in the area, and the air temp. has gotten up to 60 degrees the past few days...this should be a prime spot, assuming I'm not too late, right?

Any advice on finding/spotting them? This is my first season heading out.

Thanks, and good luck!

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Well we haven't had much input since last summer, but we have been out straining our necks in poplar stands. Still no blacks. Our yellows are popping though and I am hoping will be ready for the picking by next week end if no frost gets to them. Time to desert the forest and move back to our local wash outs. My spot where I found the greys last year has not had any pop yet either. Im having my doubts about finding any there this year.

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we did take this one bigger one home and cooked it up with some portabellas

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DS & MayFly, this has been a very late and slow-developing morel season here in PA. So I would say, don't assume your spots have passed you by this year. Let's remember that last year was sooooo early that one may have drawn unreliable conclusions about the timing.

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This weekend was very productive for morels. I went out both days and collected a total of three 6-liter pails; that's more than 6.5 gallons. At the end of an already long day of collecting from some of my usual spots, I checked out a new area that looks interesting on Google Earth; and it turned out to be more productive than any of my previous spots. Aside from the abundance of morels, this place had yellow and black morels at just the right stage of maturity for picking. And the yellows look different from the ones that I'd found a week ago in a totally different environment. The photo below shows the two types side by side. The new one on the left was growing under an apple tree, and the one on the right was picked near a cottonwood tree a week ago. The morel at the right looks like a classic yellow, currently named Morchella esculentoides by Michael Kuo. The one on the left looks like a light colored black morel. In fact, the first couple that I found were growing in an area where I'd never seen any yellow morels previously; and I assumed that they were just young black morels that hadn't darkened yet. It turns out that I was partially right. Michael Kuo describes this mushroom, Morchella frustrata, as a light colored black morel. It is also know as the western or mountain blonde morel.

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One characteristic of Morchella frustrata is the small "lip" on the bottom of the cap that hangs just below the attachment to the stalk. Black morels also show this. Vitog, did you find all of the frustratas near apple trees?

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Great to see lots of people finding morels...it will still be a while for me until i get to Montana in May...soon though! In the meantime, just a reminder, if you're on Facebook, check out our group page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/wildmushroomhunting/ and don't be a stranger. Keep those photos coming! Full baskets to all!

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Dave W, I found most of the M. frustrata under a large group of plum trees that had sprung up from spreading roots. The first couple were in a totally different environment: a forest that had been logged and then grown back into a mixture of various trees and shrubs. They were actually located right in a spot where I normally find a nice batch of blacks.

Theplanets, I look for disturbed forest areas and abandoned fields that have a mix of primarily deciduous trees and shrubs. I almost never find morels in deep, dark coniferous forests; that's where chanterelles hang out. However, one thing that I've discovered with morels is that they are frustratingly difficult to characterize. Once you find some, you think that you will find some more in the same situation elsewhere; but that usually does not happen, at least not on the west coast. Natural morels seem to be more abundant in eastern North America than in the west; so these comments probably don't apply where you are.

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Just to add to vitog's last comment. Morels along the west coast of NA seem to occur in environments diiferent than in the east or the midwest. But one exception seems to be around fruit trees, a habitat that sometimes produces morels in any region of NA where he climate is moderate.

Interesting diversity of habitat for those frustrata, vitog. Seems different than Kuo reports in his description of this species.

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Hey everyone,

Glad people are getting some nice, delicious finds.

I'm planning on a hitting up a section of forrest tomorrow (44 square miles near Cle Elum, WA) that burned last year. From what I've read it looks like the ground temperature is around 52 in the area, and the air temp. has gotten up to 60 degrees the past few days...this should be a prime spot, assuming I'm not too late, right?

Any advice on finding/spotting them? This is my first season heading out.

Thanks, and good luck!

How did it go? I went by there on Sunday (Apr. 28) and was thinking about stopping for a look. But when I was checking out the area, I noticed that most of the burn in the National Forest was too high for this early in the season and I was running out of time, so I didn't stop. After I came back, I looked at the maps again and I noticed that the North end of the burn has some valleys that are not so high if you come in from the Wenatchee side (more convenient for me anyway). You are definitely not too late but it may still be early to check around the Blewit Pass area. Blewit is good for morels even in non burn years.

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Spent 5 hours in my car and 3 hours in the woods to collect 13 small yellow morels. Output in the mid-Atlantic and lower northeast seems very low this year. I've also heard a few other similar reports.

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I think that just when the soil temp got up near the critical level (around April 13-23) the chilly nights caused it to rise too slowly. So the tulip poplar trees leafed out before the soil got warm enough for the morels to join in. Then, when it did finally get warm and sunny, this was after a period of little precip. Now it's warm and very dry underneath this "Omega block" weather pattern.

I'm still holding out some hope for the big apple/elm yellows. May 5-10 is often the best period for them. Need rain! Last photo shows a morel I found in a small easy-access local apple tree spot I checked on my way home.

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We checked my good spots again this morning. The one had 8 thats 16 total we ended up with from there. This was the dead elm where I found the big fruiting last year. The other local spot still isn't producing. On the other-hand the area where we found the late yellows under the sycamores was full of them today. I think we found nearly 250 or so , a good guess, for about 5 lbs. of mushrooms. Some had already dried out or we'd a had another pound or two.

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Nice haul DS&MayFly. Most of them appear to be in prime condition. It's been pretty dry here in eastern PA lately. So the large yellows are getting a slow start. There is a low-lying area with sycamore, ash, and probably a few tulip poplar that I had scoped out as possible good habitat. I'll check this week.

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Nice batch.

Thats a lot of mushrooms to stuff.

We are going to check a few more sycamore hollows then I guess its time to think about our oyster patch. We found a few scrawny attempts of yellows in our other spot, at least it produced a couple even if it they were pathetic. On the way back to the car I noticed two more under a sycamore about 400 feet away from the others. Makes me think maybe thats where I should be looking now.

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I'm on the verge! I've scouted a few sites and have found a few little peepers. These are anout the size of a grape:

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Wow...nice scores everyone! I am just totally mushroom deprived here in SW FL but that will all change soon as I am heading to Montana for the summer and should be knee deep in morels in a few weeks! Keep those photos coming, and pray for this: :rain:

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I haven't found any Morels yet, but only have been out looking twice.

However, I am going to Algonquin Park this weekend! Hopefully it will be a competition between the speckled trout (brook trout) on the lake, and morels in the woods!

I'll let you guys know...

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