6 Reasons You Can't Find Morel Mushrooms

every year countless people want to find morels and every year countless people don't find morels if you are someone who cannot find these elusive fungi no matter how hard you try or if you consider yourself an okay morel hunter and you're looking to improve your skills then stay tuned because what i'm going to do is share a list of six common reasons why people have trouble finding morel mushrooms now before we get into the main topic there are three things that i want to mention number one all the reasons that i'm about to discuss are listed in no particular order so it's not like the first reason is the most important reason and the last one is not that big of a deal they're all important so i encourage you to consider and pay attention to all of them number two all the information that i'm about to discuss is based on my experiences hunting morels in the northeastern united states now i know that plenty of generalizations can be made on the topic but i really feel that a lot of advice on morel mushroom hunting can and should be regionally oriented and i make no apologies for keeping the information in this video pretty local and specific because it seems to me that most good things in life are both of those local and specific having said that even if you don't live anywhere near me i know that you'll still learn something valuable after watching this video that you can implement into your morel mushroom hunting strategy at the very least you can watch an informative video without being interrupted by senseless ads and number three yes i'm aware that morels are not technically considered to be mushrooms by people who care just a little too much about these things morels are ascomycetes and these particular ascomycetes produce ascocarps with apothecea but at the risk of sounding too pedantic i'm just going to refer to morels as mushrooms in this video so keeping those three points in mind let's begin the first reason you're not finding morels is that you're not looking hard enough yes it could be as simple as that so i want to share with you a piece of information that many successful moro hunters either don't admit or they forget to admit or they just brush it aside like it's no big deal the people who find incredible numbers of morels every year enough to fill their entire truck beds are enough to cover every square inch of their 12 foot long kitchen tables and we've all seen these pictures online these people owe their successes in many cases to either being gifted morel hot spots from their parents or grandparents or neighbors or close friends or these people have spent a lot of time looking for morels over the years and they simply just returned to productive hot spots every morel season now if you're like me and you're not fortunate enough to have been let in on someone's secret spot or if you became interested in mushroom hunting later in life then you're going to have to put in a lot of time either making friends with generous people who will share their secret spots with you or you're going to have to find these spots on your own now of course you can expedite this process by asking friends for tips by browsing online forums and watching videos and by attending walks hosted by mushroom clubs during the morel season keep in mind however that you must also actively look for morels on your own time as often as you can there is no substitute for this the more time you invest in the physical act of looking for morels the more successful you will be in finding them if you only look for morels on saturdays during the morel season that's good but it's not as good as looking every saturday and monday if you only look for morels every saturday and monday that's good too but it's not as good as looking every saturday monday and thursday now i understand you got priorities you want to sleep in maybe your favorite show is aired on thursdays and your friends getting married on saturday but remember many other mushroom hunters don't sleep in they don't watch tv and none of their friends are getting married so don't be surprised when you see their truck beds and their kitchen tables overflowing with morels go out into the woods spend lots of time looking look some more look even more look even more and repeat the second reason you're not finding morels is that you're looking in the wrong habitats now i know i didn't mention anything habitat related when telling you that you need to spend a lot of time looking for morels and i did that intentionally because if you're just starting out and you're lacking basic ecological knowledge then it's very important that you explore a wide variety of different habitats noticing the similarities and the differences between these different habitats regardless of whether or not you find morels and then when you eventually do find enough morels in separate locations you will come to understand the similarities that characterize these distinct locations now a good piece of advice when it comes to learning morel habitat requirements is to learn your trees it's important to learn trees because morels typically grow in association with certain trees and it's a lot easier to see trees than it is to see morels so which trees are worth learning if you want to find morels well here are nine of them that in my experiences are associated with morels in the northeastern united states and yes plenty more tree associations exist but i'm just going to simplify the list by mentioning these nine american elm slippery elm apple tulip poplar sycamore hickory white ash green ash black cherry what's interesting is that almost all of these trees grow in fertile soils that contain lots of nutrients many of these trees can be found in flood plains on flood plain terraces along streams and on the slopes leading down into streams so get into these areas and spend lots of time looking in these habitats keep in mind however that morels don't always abide by the strict rules that we create for them and if you hunt enough morels long enough you're going to encounter plenty of anomalous situations you'll find morels under oaks you'll find morels under maples you'll find morels with seemingly no trees nearby you'll find morels close to home i know people who have spent weeks unsuccessfully looking at far away wooded habitats with lots of elms and ashes and tulip poplar trees only to come home and find prime morale mushrooms growing in their yard the third reason you're not finding morels is that your timing is off you could be in the perfect habitat but if you're too early or too late you're not going to find what you're looking for in many cases timing could be the only factor that determines whether you leave the woods with a full or empty basket some morels like many wild fungi grow during a particular time of the year now anyone can tell you that morels don't grow in august and western pennsylvania so obviously don't expect to find these mushrooms in august but you will also hear that morels typically grow from late march through late may in western pennsylvania and while that's generally true not all morel species grow from late march through late may some species appear early some species appear mid to late season i encourage you to not only learn the general time frame of morel activity in your region but also learn the peak season for each morel species and this peak season may only last for three weeks rather than for three entire months also you'll want to pay attention to the phenology of the trees the animals and other mushroom species and phenology refers to when certain things appear in a season when you do find morels notice who's blooming notice who's singing notice who's mating and notice who's leafing out in the canopy after you make these observations year after year after year you'll be able to time your morel hunts more effectively having said that it doesn't hurt to scout out potential hot spots early let's say in january and february yes the ground is too cold for morels to fruit in january and february at least in my neck of the woods but as long as you can identify trees you can still discover and explore new areas in the off season that may produce loads of morels when the ground warms up the fourth reason you're not finding morels is that it's too dry mushrooms like moisture they require moisture to fruit morels are no different without sufficient rainfall morel fruiting body production can be inhibited you could be looking at the perfect time you could be looking at the perfect habitat you could be looking in a spot that for the past five years produced lots of morel mushrooms but you're currently seeing nothing underneath your feet it's no fall to your own it's just that no rain has fallen in three weeks and this alone can really slow down the mushroom season now not all hope is lost in dry years because ever since i started looking for morels many years ago i found morels every single season there hasn't been a single season where i haven't found any every year i found at least a few and usually many more you just have to look a lot harder and perhaps explore wetter areas when conditions are generally dry the fifth reason you're not finding morels is that you haven't developed a search image for morels morels are masters of evasion they blend in extremely well with a surrounding environment you could be looking directly at a morel mushroom and not even realize it because it doesn't reveal itself too easily to human eyes however once you develop a search image for morels and once you tune your eyes to their subtle yet characteristic colors and also to their particular shapes and textures all of a sudden they start popping out from the landscape and before you know it you're looking at a dozen morels right in front of you and i remember being taught this many years ago when i was first learning how to hunt morels i was told that once you see one morel on the ground in front of you you want to burn that image into your mind and try to look past every other thing on the ground that isn't a morale mushroom so that all you see are morel mushrooms once you can do that you'd be surprised at how fast you can pick them out among the seemingly infinite number of other things that are around you and the sixth reason you're not finding morels is that someone else beat you to them as much as you may want to believe that you're the only person out in the woods hunting morels it's simply not true every year more and more people search for morels and every year more and more morales are harvested if you're not finding any morels in a particular location it's possible that someone took them all before you could get there now keep in mind that someone doesn't always mean a human someone it could be an animal or insect someone as well many animals are known to eat morels and while mammals are certainly included in that list of all the creatures in the animal kingdom i typically find that insects are the most active consumers of morels now back to the topic of human harvesting i should probably clarify my stance on harvesting every single morel in sight the scant research that exists on the topic of mushroom harvesting and sustainability suggests that harvesting mushrooms either by cutting or pulling them has little impact on future yields so even if every single morel is harvested theoretically speaking it's possible that next year just as many morels will fruit now if you've been watching my videos for a while you know that i don't recommend harvesting every single mushroom in a given area and i know it's not a popular recommendation or perspective to have but we really can't possibly believe that we're the only reason that mushrooms exist they have their own motives they have their own agendas and countless other organisms and systems in nature rely on morel fruiting bodies now some people say well i do pick every single mushroom in the woods but i'm also helping by dispersing the spores and helping with propagation by carrying these mushrooms around in my mesh bag and while it's very kind of you to do that really is and while i guess it's superficially true there are plenty of other ways that you can help that involve just a bit more thought and a bit more intention including donating your money to land conservation trusts and i don't mean a few of your dollars i mean a lot of your money you can pick up trash you can plant native plants you can absolutely refuse to purchase anything with your own dollars that's sprayed with glyphosate you can teach rather than brag and you can give rather than take it's an unachieved sentiment to believe that your actions result in no long-term consequences it's a more achieved sentiment to believe that everything you do matters if the old adage is true given you shall receive and perhaps you're not finding what you want to find because you're not giving what you need to give and i don't just mean finding morale mushrooms i mean finding what's most important in life just something to think about the next time we decide to harvest without any desire to intentionally reciprocate [Music] so there you have it six reasons you cannot find morel mushrooms now certainly this was not an exhaustive list i'm sure you can rattle off 20 more reasons if i had to add one more reason i'd probably add you can't find morels because they just don't grow where you live yes morels grow in many parts of the world but they don't grow everywhere perhaps your climate your soil your elevation or some other factor precludes morels from growing in your general region if that's the case don't worry despite what mushroom hunters want you to believe there's more to life than morel mushrooms learn a wildflower learn a bird learn a tree learn a new edible plant there will never be a shortage of things to excite and to inspire you outside thanks so much for watching this video i truly appreciate it if you want to support learn your land you can subscribe to the youtube channel you can also head on over to learnyourland.com and sign up for the email newsletter and if you are on social media you can give learn your land to follow on instagram and on facebook thanks again for watching i'll see you on the next video [Music]

Channel: Learn Your Land

Views: 384,237

Rating: 4.9046106 out of 5

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Id: IHmpgUIYZnk

Length: 14min 38sec (878 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 07 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/HotGarbageHuman]

I hit play thinking "cool", video is 14 mins long, "skip"