130

[BilletHead]

   Good Hunt this morning. Get out there and get ya some. 

[bfishn]

What a haul! Nice and fresh too.

[DADAKOTA]

Way Jealous

[Terrierman]

Dry here.  Nothing yet in my usual place in the backyard.  Asparagus is nothing yet too, but the patch has been burned off and salted.  Patience is a virtue, right?

[bfishn]

Our changing weather has everything I thought I knew all effed up. Hit the walleye when the first spring peepers sing. Out.  Crappie and morels when the first dogwoods bloom. Out. I suppose the girls will all get uglier at closing time now too. 😵‍💫

[jdmidwest]

12 hours ago, bfishn said:

Our changing weather has everything I thought I knew all effed up. Hit the walleye when the first spring peepers sing. Out.  Crappie and morels when the first dogwoods bloom. Out. I suppose the girls will all get uglier at closing time now too. 😵‍💫

The girls seem to be liking other girls anyway, you don't have a chance.

Picked about 60 in the yard at farm Friday afternoon.  Best crop I have seen there in years.  All other spots empty, too dry here.

[BilletHead]

32 minutes ago, jdmidwest said:

The girls seem to be liking other girls anyway, you don't have a chance.

Picked about 60 in the yard at farm Friday afternoon.  Best crop I have seen there in years.  All other spots empty, too dry here.

            I don't get the dry part. We are dry still too as far as compared to the long-term average. Last year even worse and year before that bad but we still found. So, you @jdmidwest and to @Terrierman both of you guys have had way more rain than we have had here. I know you both know how the mushroom underground network works. Growing in a ring not always a true circle bigger each year. We did not find morels in some of our regular places, but we did start walking in concentric circles around those places and bingo they were there the mushroom mycelium pushing up its fruit in the form of a morel. One place in my mom's yard we found a great patch where we have never found any before. 30 yards from another patch where we found a few and 20 yards from an old apple tree we found last year that did not produce even one this season. In high school I had a biology teacher and when we got to fungus, he called it fungi imperfecti. For a living organism that produces so many spores and it takes the most perfect conditions for that spore to take hold and create a new network of mycelium to form. He said that was imperfect. This many years later I still remember that and want to say fungi perfecti meaning something totally different as they want the perfect spot to start. 

[bfishn]

11 hours ago, jdmidwest said:

The girls seem to be liking other girls anyway, you don't have a chance...

True dat. That's exactly what happened to me the last time I was in active pursuit/bar mode (Eureka Springs). Struck up with a beauty at the bar for an hour, drinks were drank and tales were told. Feelin' pretty good about the whole thing till her girlfriend showed up. She was a man-hater and a burro rider (literally). Although I left with my 'nads,  I felt... less... after that, and I don't like it.

...or.... maybe it's just 'cause I'm not 23 anymore...🫠

[bfishn]

Can't remember where it came from, but I once read a convincing paper on fungal mycelium competition. It contended that once a variant establishes a network, other varieties were absent. There's lots of other kinds of dirt fungus. I can't remember ever finding morels in the presence of other mushrooms, can you?

[jdmidwest]

11 hours ago, BilletHead said:

            I don't get the dry part. We are dry still too as far as compared to the long-term average. Last year even worse and year before that bad but we still found. So, you @jdmidwest and to @Terrierman both of you guys have had way more rain than we have had here. I know you both know how the mushroom underground network works. Growing in a ring not always a true circle bigger each year. We did not find morels in some of our regular places, but we did start walking in concentric circles around those places and bingo they were there the mushroom mycelium pushing up its fruit in the form of a morel. One place in my mom's yard we found a great patch where we have never found any before. 30 yards from another patch where we found a few and 20 yards from an old apple tree we found last year that did not produce even one this season. In high school I had a biology teacher and when we got to fungus, he called it fungi imperfecti. For a living organism that produces so many spores and it takes the most perfect conditions for that spore to take hold and create a new network of mycelium to form. He said that was imperfect. This many years later I still remember that and want to say fungi perfecti meaning something totally different as they want the perfect spot to start. 

We are dry in patches.  The farm has not had any rain to speak of for a while.  El Nino has blown it just north and kept it south.  I think my total gauge for 24 is still around 5 inches.  I think March was less than a half inch.  The little shower we had last time sprouted mine.

South of me near Dexter, they were finding 50 lb sacks of them 2 weeks ago.  But they also have places near Greenville that did not produce a single one.  Northeast of me over in Illinois, 50 lb sacks of them.  Banner year also.

Temps have been right, but moisture is a key.  Too much cools the ground off too much.  Funny thing about apple trees, the last tree in the old orchard died a few years ago.  Its about 40' tall and has not produced an apple in my lifetime.  Never saw a morel near it.  Mine all come around the catalpas and a lone tulip poplar Dad planted after I left for college.