Morels are here!!

[MIOguy]

I found 34 wonderful morels today and my brother and my dad found about the same amount. I thought it was too cold here in central Oklahoma for them to come out but they once again proved me wrong. 34 morels amounted to a little more than a pound with the average size being a bit over 2 inches tall.

Should find lots more tomorrow!

Good luck to other fellow mushroom hunters!

[Constance]

Well, ours have certainly gotten enough rain this year. If anyone can get too them, they oughta be "bigguns"!

[kitchenelf]

- I'm morel-less *sniffle* *sniffle*

[MIOguy]

So sorry, Kitchenelf. I'm off to the woods to look for more. If you are in central OK this evening stop by for a morel supper!

[DramaQueen]

I'll be flying to Michigan in mid May for the summer while Morels are still available. I look forward to that every year. I buy them from a private source who hunts them for me.

[silentmeow]

Originally Posted by MIOguy

I found 34 wonderful morels today and my brother and my dad found about the same amount. I thought it was too cold here in central Oklahoma for them to come out but they once again proved me wrong. 34 morels amounted to a little more than a pound with the average size being a bit over 2 inches tall.

Should find lots more tomorrow!

Good luck to other fellow mushroom hunters!

Fantastic! I'm in Michigan and have to wait 'til Mother's Day, (early May give or take). What time should I show up for dinner? I like mine sauted in a bit of butter and a sprinkle of salt. I'll bring some wine! Sounds like good eats. Congrats on the find.

[MIOguy]

Drama and Silent: I need to find a reason to visit Michigan in early May! What a great idea to extend the morel hunting season more than a month. My take today was less than half of yesterday's find. I'm not sure what's going on...maybe a little colder last night than the night before. Morels can truly be fickle.

[oneoffour]

I usually find them to coincide with the mayapples so it will be a couple of weeks. Got a spot for the black morels (a pine grove)that seem to come just ahead of the white (mixed pine and tulip polar). They do over lap their appearance and then the little semiliberata (mixed hardwood) finish the harvest . What companion trees and plants are where you find yours?

[silentmeow]

We have found them along the riverbank, in our forest and even right in the yard. They are easy to spot growing in the green grass. No rhyme or reason to where they'll pop up I just hope lots of them pop up this year. Maybe with all the rain it will be a bumper crop this year!

[MIOguy]

Dead or dying elm trees for some reason seem to have some positive affect on the morels. Loamy creekbanks with mixed hardwoods are my favorite hunting areas. Colder weather moved in Friday night and it really slowed their progress. The variety we have here is the yellow morel. When they first come up they are actually more white than yellow.

[DramaQueen]

In Michigan morels can be found under oak trees. I live in an RV in an RV resort during the summer in Michigan. Traverse Bay RV - Northern Michigan’s Premiere RV Park - Photos of our Luxury RV Park) We own our lots so we can landscape them. I had someone pour 10 bags of mulch on my lot when I left there in September. In early May of the following spring, I got a call from my neighbor there that there were tons of morels growing on my lot. He asked if he could pick them. When I got to Michigan in late May I discovered that the mulch bags contained shredded oak wood. I couldn't believe that it would have morel spores. Too bad I got there too late to harvest my own morels.

[MIOguy]

Wow, Drama! That is incredible. Maybe I should order some oak mulch for my yard!

[MIOguy]

We spent most of the day in OKC listening to local bands and generally goofing off. When we got home around 5:30 my brother told me he had found about a gallon of morels (and had also bagged a 13 lbs. gobbler.) I jumped on the 4 wheeler and went looking for morels.

None of my usual hotspots yielded a single mushroom and I was just about to go back to the house when I decided to look at a spot on higher ground just in case. We had a minor flood earlier this week and all the low spots were still saturated and covered in debris. About 75 yards up from a place I normally find mushrooms I saw a single morel under an Eastern red cedar tree. As I approached it I saw four or five more in the vicinity.

For the next hour I picked over 6 pounds of morels within a 200 yard x 20 yard area. Most were under cedar trees. None were very far from cedar trees. The ones that were not under cedars were among some very much still dormant sumac scrub.

Cleaning the cedar debris from the morels was a bummer. I won't even think about it tomorrow as I'm pigging out on fresh morels!!

Life is good.

[Constance]

I am green with envy. We live in morel country, but neither of us is able to get out and hunt for them, and our friends who do, don't share.

[MIOguy]

Constance: If you can think of a safe way for me to ship you some morels over the next 48 hours let me know. They do not freeze well. At least that has been my experience.

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

They can be dried in a dehydrator, and packed in plastic bags. Then, they can either be ground into powder, or rehydrated in hot water. The water must be used as it leeches quite a bit of the mushroom flavor.

Seeeeeeeya; Goodweed of the North

[AllenOK]

Don't remind me about the "flooding" issue. We haven't had any flooding in the house, but, several of the roads into and out of our area where closed due to high water.