Mushroom Talk

Have you ever wondered why many mushroom hunters fill bread sacks full with morel mushrooms while others seem to fill grocery sacks? Well patience is the only difference. Under normal conditions, morel mushrooms grow at a rate of % inch per day and start turning yellow when they reach 3-4 inches tall. The mushrooms shown in Figure 1 and Figure 2 were picked this season from the same tree over the course of a week.

At 2:30pm on Wednesday April 29, 2009 I came across a perfect mushroom tree in the timber. The elm tree was the perfect size, the perfect age and the perfect location for producing morel mushrooms. Around it I found a few small grey mushrooms about 1 - 1 % inches tall about 3-8 feet from the base of the tree. To prove that mushrooms do in fact grow, I decided to leave some of the small grey mushrooms and check my tree later.

On Thursday, April 30th I went back in the timber to visit my mushroom tree and found some more grey mushrooms. 

Read the full article in the June 18 edition of the News-Review.