Can you believe Morels grow in the ground

[Johnsfolly]

Last year I could not find a single morel. To my credit, I did catch a lot of fish and a variety of fish during the morel season. So this year my wife taught me that to be successful at morel hunting that I need stop looking in the water and look on the banks. I did finally succumb to going out with my wife and daughter to go hunt morels on land. The first spot, I just couldn't find any early on. My wife started finding them and even got to the point of pointing one out to me and offered that I could pick it just to get the feel for it.

Now I knew what to look for to find these morels. We did find many more. Even I found several. However, my daughter and myself still found less than my wife. These morels were found in a public park that gets some attention from other mushroom hunters. So we were pretty happy with our bounty. We did find this other mushroom on this trip. Any one have a thought as to what this might be would be appreciated.

My wife has been obsessed to go out to a location this year where my daughter found a really large morel last year. So we had to go to this potentially overlooked spot. We (I) only found two morels, but they were big ones.

We were pretty happy with our total number of mushrooms including a few dryad saddle mushrooms that we are going to try.

[BilletHead]

Nice Johnsfolly,

The other finds look like dryads saddles.

  I thought you were going to give us a lesson on how mushrooms grow in the ground. They have a network of mycelium, fine threads. What we see is the fruiting body of that type of mushroom. I am careful when I pick my shrooms. A slice with a knife leaving the base in the ground. Do yo all know it is illegal to pull wild mushrooms in Colorado? Yep it is. One year when bow hunting elk  I stumbled upon some king boletes. I had read this before so I sliced them off. Shot a grouse too. As I was preparing the grouse and mushrooms a fish and game guy rode up on a mule. Seen the boletes. Asked how I picked them. He than said I did it the right way, checked out licenses and rode off.

BilletHead

[rps]

8 minutes ago, BilletHead said:

Nice Johnsfolly,

The other finds look like dryads saddles.

  I thought you were going to give us a lesson on how mushrooms grow in the ground. They have a network of mycelium, fine threads. What we see is the fruiting body of that type of mushroom. I am careful when I pick my shrooms. A slice with a knife leaving the base in the ground. Do yo all know it is illegal to pull wild mushrooms in Colorado? Yep it is. One year when bow hunting elk  I stumbled upon some king boletes. I had read this before so I sliced them off. Shot a grouse too. As I was preparing the grouse and mushrooms a fish and game guy rode up on a mule. Seen the boletes. Asked how I picked them. He than said I did it the right way, checked out licenses and rode off.

BilletHead

Great story! Is there science behind the slice and not pluck rule?

[BilletHead]

    There must be RPS. Leaving the stump there does nothing to damage the fine network of threads in the ground. When you just yank up the shroom you can see the "roots".

BilletHead

[Johnsfolly]

BH - do you know how old the mycelium of a morel can live or how old they must be to produce the fruiting body? We were wondering that as we were hunting. I hadn't ever looked into their age before.

[BilletHead]

    You know John I don't know. Guess we should investigate and report. I do know that I have taken morel trimmings to a couple places. One under our apple tree and then into a shroomy looking place next to the house hoping some spores would take root so to say and get started. 5 or 6 years worth and nothing yet. I dehydrated a few yesterday and can see a cloudy area where spores had fell out onto the dehydrator bottom and trays. i know I have seen forum member Gavin posting I think on the Missouri Mycological Society page, bet he knows?

BilletHead 

[Johnsfolly]

Well we tried the dryad saddles tonight. I sliced it real thin and cooked with a little butter, salt, pepper, and garlic powder. They do have a melon like smell when I cut them. It was decent tasting and not too tough even though these were older mushrooms.

[BilletHead]

 John an example from one of my books, Quote,

" Each year, mushrooms appear t the leading edge of this expanding circle of mycelium. If the food supply is sufficient, the circle of mycelium may expand for hundreds of years. In undisturbed praire grasslands in Kansas, biologists have found fairy rings of meadow mushrooms and puffballs that were more than 600 foot in diameter. If the mycelium grew at a rate of about 18 inches a year, some of the rings in Kansas were formed at about the same time that Columbus landed in America, nearly 500 years ago. Large fairy rings several century's old have also been found in England near Stonehenge.They form a perfect natural counterpart to the circular assmblage of rocks placed by humans about 3,000 years ago to record the changing seasons through astronomical observations. "

BilletHead

[Johnsfolly]

Thanks for the information. May explain how the mushrooms move from one location to another as the mycelium is feeding along the fallen tree or root system.

[slab slinger]

Congrats on the morels John. Couple real dandys there. Cool info. Thanks billethead.