When is mushroom season in illinois

Sign Up Now. According to Merriam-Webster, a morel is any of several edible fungi genus Morchella, especially M.

And then there are those who enjoy the distinctive taste of their pick — the taste sometimes being described as nutty. Morels are most normally cooked and eaten fresh but they can be dried or frozen but some of the texture and flavor are lost.

The morel mushroom has a peaked cap, folded crevices, and is light beige in color — even though there are variations of the color including grays and yellows. The University of Illinois Extension has a great, simple explanation of the difference — check it out their Morel Mushroom Hunting Blog — it will help you in determining what you need to be looking for.

You could also buy a good mushroom guidebook — carry it with you — and go with an experienced mushroom hunter. The morel mushroom hunting season is short! The month of April is when morel mushrooms begin to appear in Central Illinois but the season can last through mid-May.

The morel hunting season is best after April showers have come and gone — when adequate rainfall has created moist soil conditions in the woods. The morel mushroom normally grows in wooded areas but can be found growing in a variety of places — including cracks of sidewalks! Morels can be found near creeks but one of the more favorable locations is by dead elm trees. You will also need to look in undisturbed woods and the wooded edges of fields and river bottoms.

Walk slowly and watch where you step. If you find one morel, look in the immediate vicinity for more — several morels may be in the same area if growing conditions are right.

So…spray before you go and check yourself and others when you return from your hike. Many people also use a walking stick, which serves two purposes. You can use it to carefully move plant leaves and push back brush around tree bases but it also saves from bending over to search spots — great back relief! One thing I found interesting while researching for this blog — the type of bag or container you take with you can make a difference in the future of mushrooms and mushroom hunting.

Mesh bags are preferred over plastic ones to allow the spores to spread. The recommended method is to use a sharp knife to cut them off cleanly at the base. Recent land development has decreased the mushrooming territory and many remaining stands of timber have been privatized.

Therefore, you should always get permission from landowners before hunting mushrooms on their property and if hunting on public land, check at a ranger station as some areas may be under protection. When apple orchards bloom and oak leaves grow bigger, the season to hunt for morels has arrived. Five species of morel mushrooms — the edible morels include the black, white and yellow morels — grow in the state.

Black morels emerge first from the end of March through early April with yellow and white morels springing up one to two weeks later, overlapping the black morel growing season. The foraging season is over by the first two weeks in May in southern to central Illinois, but it continues for about two additional weeks in the northern part of the state.

Morel foraging season lasts about four weeks in total for each mushroom type. Morel mushrooms have distinctive conical, fluted and pitted caps. Morel caps range in color from nut brown to black and look like a walnut husk with deep pits and folds. Another mushroom, the false morel, does not have a conical cap and looks more like brown folded parchment growing between the blanket of leaves.

The best place to look for morels in Illinois is along the edge of forested areas where you find oak, elm, aspen and ash trees growing. In the early spring as the ground heats up, look for morels on slopes that face south in the open areas. As spring continues its warming trend, hunt for them along north-facing slopes deeper into wooded areas. Morel mushrooms prefer moist areas where a canopy of trees have left a deep layer of shed leaves. A few are found in late March in southern Illinois.

The last of the harvest disappears in northern Illinois in early May. There are three different varieties of true morel mushrooms found in Illinois. Wendy Porter is hunting morel mushrooms with her father near the Missouri River.

The year-old Nebraskan has been hunting them for three decades. She even started a Facebook group for morel mushroom hunting in Nebraska in Sometimes his granddaughter and great-grandkids come along.

She grew up hunting morel mushrooms with her father, Phill Finch. Hunters are worried about people finding their secret spot and getting their mushrooms. Morels are hard to find because they require very specific conditions to grow. The ground temperatures need to be between 55 and 60 degrees, and they only grow near freshly dead trees that still have a lot of bark on them.

Kepler says morel mushroom hunting is extremely popular.