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  1. #11
    Senior Dog Macy's Avatar
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    I'm interested in this thread. We love to hunt morels and I have often wondered about the morel kits I see for sale. But I love all mushrooms and think the science behind them is fascinating.

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  3. #12
    Senior Dog Jeff's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by janedoe View Post
    OK. I've been obsessing about this all day. Don't cringe, Jeff, but I found a farm that's willing to sell packs of 100 spawn plugs for $8 each because they are older. We had a young hardwood cut down just a couple of months ago because it was being dragged down by vines and the vines pulled down the tree next to it when it fell so I have plenty of pieces to work with, all about 8-10 inches in diameter. Neither the spawn nor the medium are ideal since the wood will be aged by a few months before I can start something outdoors but for $8 it is well worth it. I'm looking at getting king oyster spawn for growing indoors. The nice thing about the kits apparently is that you can "replant" them in new coffee grounds when the old medium is spent.

    This is quite the education. I didn't realize how much of a role shrooms play in breaking down wood, straw and things like coffee grounds. In many ways, it's just composting and I love that kind of thing.
    That's kind of cool I have never heard of growing them in coffee grounds. I would think it would be too acidic, but hey like I said each type of mushroom prefers different medium to grow in. Hardwood is fine, some prefer hard wood, some prefer softer woods like pine. Morel for example love softer woods like pine, my morel hunting spot are all in large clusters of pines. I learned this through observation when I was a kid. Never will forget my mom sent me and my uncle out to the woods to get some for supper, We were finding one here one there and then we spit up, I went towards the pine trees, the frequency increased then I kicked a fallen log. I got 2 grocery bags full that day. Since then I always look for pine clusters and do quite well.

    As far as breaking things down, that's where fairy rings come from another mushroom phenomena for you to look into.

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  5. #13
    Senior Dog janedoe's Avatar
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    Morels look like the more difficult mushroom to grow. They seem ideal for our area. From what I've read, they like elms (our state tree) and well defined seasons. However, I don't know what an elm looks like even though we have a billion trees on our property. Good to know they like pines. I'm wondering if that tree that died at the base of the hill and we had cut up last year was an elm. It looks like it might have been just from memory but I'm not good at these things. I'm going to give it a shot though. At the very least, I can use it as a substrate. Morels apparently like moisture but take 1-2 years to produce and deer love them. I like our property for this kind of experiment since we have so many different kinds of zones.

    Jeff, what are the lighting and moisture conditions for your morel spots? Do you find that there are any other species that they are confused with? They seem very distinctive to me.

    On a side note, I found a thing where you can inoculate the roots of a young tree with morel spores then plant it. Can't help but wonder if this kills the tree.

  6. #14
    Senior Dog janedoe's Avatar
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    Just looked up the fairy ring. That is wild!

  7. #15
    Senior Dog Jeff's Avatar
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    My spots have no direct sunlight or very little. It can be bright there just no direct sunlight. Also damp but not flooded. The ground is usually wet but hard enough you can walk on without sinking in. So not swampy. You can wear hiking boots, they wouldn't need to be water proof. They may get wet on the outside but your not going to soak your feet. Besides being no direct sunlight lot of wind breaks so no wind sucking out the moisture. Your going to find a lit of rotted crumbling logs. Basically late April, May time frame so cooler out rainy and moist but kind of warm and humid during the day. I have never found any after May too hot then. The temp and moisture needs to be just right. When they sprout they are only out for a couple days then they dry out and disappear. Also no there is no mushroom that looks like morels they are very unique. The magic mushrooms are the ones that are really hard to determin, especially in north america. The one that grows up in the northern states has another that looks exactly like the magic mushroom that is highly poisonous.

    Hmm, I wouldn't think putting the spores on a live tree would kill it. They really do not have a long time period they spawn and grow. I guess it would depend on the tree. Like say an oak tree has deep huge roots and a giant tap root. So the roots really aren't going to ever see light and the mushrooms wouldn't really eat the roots. It could cause fungus on the outside of the tree though. Maple trees on the other hand have very shallow roots and often are exposed to surface so quite possible the shrooms would grow, but again, going to depends how much sun and moisture they get too.

    Then yeah Elm trees are a pretty tree they can get huge, tall as a oak just not as much girth. I used to as a teen be able to identify about 100 trees by bark, leaves, and then just the ends of the branches. The horticulture class I took it was a requirement, we took test on it. However, couldn't do it today. Maybe about 10-20 trees I am really familiar with anymore. Most I only know by the leaves anymore. Some are really easy though to recognize by bark though you can't mistake, Birch, Catalpa, beech, etc.

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  9. #16
    Senior Dog janedoe's Avatar
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    We have so many maples. I'm glad that you said that there is a lot of rotting wood around your mushroom sites. We have an awful lot of really nice rotting hardwood and never use chemicals on our property so I'm thinking I can build a wind break in a well moisturized, nicely off lit area at the bottom of our hill.

 



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