any advice for morels?

[dave k]

HI,

Not that I'm morally inclined (hoho.....!) but I was wondering if anyone had any tips of good places to start looking for Morels?

I'm based in Dorset, so any quiet hints to good location's would be gratefully accepted

 

[bushwacker bob]

Wait til autumn.Thats when most fungi fruit.

 

[bushtank]

HI,

Not that I'm morally inclined (hoho.....!) but I was wondering if anyone had any tips of good places to start looking for Morels?

I'm based in Dorset, so any quiet hints to good location's would be gratefully accepted

The Morel is a late spring fungi so dont wait tilll autumn you will find them in gardens, wasteland and woodland i get mine from the top of my garden growing in a sandy soil

 

[Mikey P]

Yep, as Mr Turnbull says, if you wait for autumn, they'll all be gone.

I say a very interesting Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall programme where he goes out with a local fungi expert looking for morels (probably in Dorset) and the main place they were getting morels was in people's gardens where they'd put bark mulch on their flowerbeds. It's one of those few times that 'man-made' features have actually been to the benefit of wild fungi. That could be a good starting point.

There was also another programme (I think it was HFW again) where they found one morel in a wood, and then found loads more by going upwind and downwind (based on prevailing wind direction) as that's where spores would have been carried from/to.

So, I guess if you find one, that's a good method of finding more. I'm thinking that could also work for other fungi?

 

[xylaria]

Go for sandy soil.

Where I live they grow on a brown field site right near the city centre. There is light covering from small silver birch and hazel. The ground does not grow much in way of grasses, but there is alot of mosses, terrestrial algae and coltsfoot. The site has been disused for aleast 20 years and there is still alot of primary colonators.

This paticular site is old railway and has being covered with what appears to be building sand. The local country park is also sandy soil but I have never seen a morel there.