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2023 Connecticut Morel Season

1091 Views 28 Replies 9 Participants Last post by  TimG, 
clutch2412
3
Very quiet Ct. board. Been waiting to see if anyone wants to spill the beans. I guess I will be first....not saying the 1st to find a morel...just the first to report. Have been in NY for the last couple weeks and they are most definitely up there. Had a few decent days of 40 plus morels. Made my 1st trip in Ct. today and found 33 good sized mushrooms. After that little heat wave the weather is cooperating nicely. Get out there everybody and good luck.

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C
Nice job clutch, I went back to apple orchard, 6th time , nothing. I will be in the Northwest corner tomorrow. Keep trudging.
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clutch2412
CThunter said:
Nice job clutch, I went back to apple orchard, 6th time , nothing. I will be in the Northwest corner tomorrow. Keep trudging.
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Good luck out there CThunter!!! Check all Ash....dead or alive! I hope you are in the woods as I peck away on my phone writing this. Had to be an adult today or I would be joining you.
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C
Walked several acres of live & dead ash today, Nothing, I'll do some more research & try to be better prepared for next season. The apple orchard nor the ash near me produced. Expand territory.
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F
Nice haul and great pics! I didn’t have any luck last week, but got to spend a lot of time in the woods. Hoping to check out a couple of new spots this week though.
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T
clutch2412 said:
Hi NonServiam. You are definitely in a good morel area. The limestone deposits are a big plus. They run up through NY as well. As for the Ash trees...dead, dying and of course alive...I find them around all three. Not sure what the future holds though. Getting tougher to even get through the woods with all the fallen Ash. Look for Tulips. Elm if You can find it. And no...generally I do not find morel in ferns but I have found them " near" ferns. This upper level low weather pattern bringing all the cool wet weather is finally leaving us in a couple. You are set up nice to find a bunch!
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it is thoght that limestone soil is goof for morels due to the pH, but it isn't scientifically valid, based on my soil tests. I was a moderator for an older morel discussion board and had people from up and down the east coast from NJ to SC send soil samples plus many samples I took myslef in SC, NC, and VA. I sent them to my local extension service to see if there was anything in common where morels were found. There wasn't anything in common. What surprised me was all were from acidic soils, below 5.8 and as low as 4.9 pH. The only sample with a high pH was from Idaho.
I don't know about your specific area but quite a few Ash trees in VA that looked like they'd been killed were beginning to send shoots up from just above the soil line. I haven't been back there in 2 years due to age and back related issues.
That and the fact of most Ash trees were killed and it wasn't worth the time and cost for our 3 week trip from SC to VA for perhaps 1-3 pounds of morels. In older years we'd get 40-75 pounds. I had searched the Front Royal to Luray VA area for over 30 years and took extensive notes. Best of luck.
I used to occasionally find good bunches of morels under long dead Elm stumps, but it as hit- or mostly miss. We'd find morls uderother long dead tree but we'd only look ifwe were in an area with other known morels producingtrees. One of my best dead trees was an OAK! For 7-8 years I'd find 15-25 each spring of the large type. I found them under 2 other dead oaks.
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clutch2412
Tim G. You have a wealth of knowledge my friend. Thank you for sharing! So now I really have no idea why we find morels where we do! I wish you the best.
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R
TimG said:
it is thoght that limestone soil is goof for morels due to the pH, but it isn't scientifically valid, based on my soil tests. I was a moderator for an older morel discussion board and had people from up and down the east coast from NJ to SC send soil samples plus many samples I took myslef in SC, NC, and VA. I sent them to my local extension service to see if there was anything in common where morels were found. There wasn't anything in common. What surprised me was all were from acidic soils, below 5.8 and as low as 4.9 pH. The only sample with a high pH was from Idaho.
I don't know about your specific area but quite a few Ash trees in VA that looked like they'd been killed were beginning to send shoots up from just above the soil line. I haven't been back there in 2 years due to age and back related issues.
That and the fact of most Ash trees were killed and it wasn't worth the time and cost for our 3 week trip from SC to VA for perhaps 1-3 pounds of morels. In older years we'd get 40-75 pounds. I had searched the Front Royal to Luray VA area for over 30 years and took extensive notes. Best of luck.
I used to occasionally find good bunches of morels under long dead Elm stumps, but it as hit- or mostly miss. We'd find morls uderother long dead tree but we'd only look ifwe were in an area with other known morels producingtrees. One of my best dead trees was an OAK! For 7-8 years I'd find 15-25 each spring of the large type. I found them under 2 other dead oaks.
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Alicia Winter
Questions--Anyone still looking? I had a bad year. None of my good spots produced, and I looked a few other random places- 6 morels total. :cry: What is the general feeling about the year? Cool weather a factor? Nighttime temps are still not consistently in the 50's (31 last night). I wonder what everyone else thinks? On another note, is it generally known that greys come after blondes? Or it it like everything else 'morel', and remains a mystery? Also, I have a dying orchard spot that has produced a few in the past, but nothing like I'd expect. It's about an acre in the woods of 100 yo. apples. I'm considering sprinkling ash from the fireplace around, just as an experiment (since I can't burn it down). Is it the heat, or the ash, that causes the morels to pop? I'm understanding that most flushes occur when the underlying fungus feels the urgent need to produce/expand due to threat. Any fact to that, or am I just speculating. Love some opinions. Cheers!
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T
The grey morels are just young blonds, or what I call yellows. For burn morels it's thought that it's the heat that damages the roots the morels have been associating with, thus the need to fruit on order for the species to propagate. If the roots get damaged one of the main food sources for morels has been destroyed. I've had very mixed results in old apple orchards. Some with no morels and some with ample morels.
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