shroom picking

[BCMtnHound]

Fantastic haul Mr Rev!

One of these days I’ll brave the hordes of Québécois migrant pickers and visit a burn in the late spring for morels. For now I wait for fall shroom season.

[neckdeep]

Filled another bag today. Going to test drive the dehydrator tomorrow.

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I run mine at 105 for 1 hour to dry off some of the water from washing the morels then turn it down to 90 for the duration. I always wash burn morels before drying. Sort the trays of morels by size.

[neckdeep]

[The Reverend Floater]

Got what will likely be our final bag today. They were more elusive and definitely on their way out. Going out of town until mid July, but it was a great season!

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[RootSkier]

I posted about a friend who died from suspected poisoning from false morels a month or so ago, which stirred some debate. All I can say is that Peter was one of the most cautious, careful people I've ever met (who paddle whitewater and backcountry ski, at least). And I don't plan to debate anyone about it now but his wife just posted the following:

"The official autopsy results have come in for Peter. He died of acute necrotizing gastritis due to the consumption of foraged mushrooms (rehydrated dried morels gathered in the Bitterroot Mountains in June 2022). He had no underlying conditions.

The lab could not differentiate between the toxin found in the true morel (hydrazine) and the toxin found in the false morel (gyromitrin), nor can they test for monomethylhydrazine (a chemical found in rocket fuel), which is metabolized by our bodies when morel toxins are consumed. The toxins destroyed Peter's stomach tissue in a 12-hour window of time.

I will be meeting with Peter's doctor to go over the results in detail, but his doctor also confirmed that Peter had no underlying conditions. So, be very careful out there, and please review my earlier posts about precautions with morels."

[neckdeep]

Pretty weird. Victim died of a very rare condition more commonly associated with bacterial food poisoning than mushroom toxins. I've been trying to search up similar cases and am drawing a blank. If it was caused by ingesting true morels then he is literally a one out of millions case.

[beer30]

I developed a violent allergy to Morels. I would vomit profusely about 20 minutes after eating them. Picked and ate them for 5 years prior without any issues.

[neckdeep]

Looks like an epic monsoon this year. Won't be long until the chants and porcinis are up,

[The Reverend Floater]

Took the family out for a quick stroll and guess what? Giant blondes on the last day of July!!!

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[neckdeep]

Those are grays, Morchella Tomentosa, aka fuzzyfoots.

Grays pop from deep sclerotia and show up after the blacks. Like the blacks, its exclusively found in burns. Usually, you'll start finding them in warm zones when you're hiking up to the last patches of blacks. Since they come from deeper ground they will still pop in conditions that seem too dry. There's quite a bit of variety in appearance, ranging from dark grey to a dirty white. Grays frequently pop in large crowns containing 10-20 shrooms and have such a large tap root that they remain cool to the touch in a hot, sunny zone of black ash. You can even find them in zones that got nuked.

Note Well: giving up on a burn because its drying out as the blacks wind down is a classic rookie mistake. I've picked several burns near Jackson that were crowded during the peak of blacks and had no one, absolutely no one, picking during a big pop of grays two weeks later.

Grays aren't prolific like blacks but they are thick walled and heavy. When you find a patch, you can quickly put some weight in the bucket. The burns I've picked seemed to produce grays at a ratio of 5-10% of the volume of blacks. You'll walk further to fill a bucket but you'll also have to bend and kneel a lot less too. A bucket full of grays is heavy. Grays have a better flavor than the blacks and fetch a better price, usually 10-20% more.

The so called "mountain blondes" are a different species, morchella tridentina. That's a natural, not a fire morel. It's a saprotrophic, late spring morel that flourishes in very wet conditions. Big difference. Blondes are garbage, imho, but grays are considered the most desirable morel by commercial pickers.

[evdog]

Impressive size on these! Not a mushroom picker so they're still there if you guys can find em

[neckdeep]

[The Reverend Floater]

^ What are those?

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[skaredshtles]

Chantrelles unless my eyes deceive me.

[neckdeep]

Cantharellus Roseocanus, the Rocky Mountain chanterelle, sometimes called a rainbow chanterelle. The ones around here don't have the pinkish caps that give it the "rainbow" nickname. AFAIK, this is the only species of chant in the central Rockies.

[Harry]

[garyfromterrace]

Winning! Nice work man. No edible shrooms have popped here yet but it's rained a bit in the last few days so here's hoping!

[neckdeep]

Picked 21 lbs, definitely a new personal best for chanterelle season.

Is no one else getting the monsoon? Really quiet in here.

I expect to see porcini popping up with the next wave of monsoon.

[JimmyCarter]

Giant growth under my kids play structure. Is this something I should keep the dog away from or relatively harmless?

[neckdeep]

Looks a lot like hen-of-the-woods but since those do not grow in Wydaho I will defer to someone who picks in hardwood forests. They usually grow at the base of oaks, not playhouses. Could be an inedible but not toxic polypore of some sort. I'm not aware of any dangerous look alike for Hens but, as I said, I do not pick them.

No reasons to not treat it like any other unwelcome weed in the lawn.

[The Reverend Floater]

Giant polypore?

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[ex-powderbroker]

lots of boletes coming up but no cep yet. hoping tomorrow to get lucky.

[neckdeep]

All the low elevation porcini around here have come up full of worms. But, the chanterelle patches are just insane. Pretty common to find spots with 100-300 chants in a patch.

Truly epic picking but I haven't seen any other foragers or cut stems. Didn't see anyone picking morels this year either. Big change from last summer. I am declaring the great mushroom fad of 2022 to be officially over.

The hidden benefit of having your home town taken over by wealthy lemmings is that the new people are absolutely useless in the forest. "Local knowledge" is fading, imho. The population has practically doubled in recent years but there are actually a lot fewer people hiking into great fishing spots, busting thickets for shrooms, picking huckleberries or cutting wood. Lately, I've been on roads where 10 years ago, you couldn't escape the sound of chainsaws in August and now theres maybe one or two guys getting their firewood or no one at all.

[twat]

I liked the colours if this one.

[garyfromterrace]

Finally got a mushroom this year.. yeah, just one. But this bolete fried up nice and became part of a very nice mushroom burger. Hopefully more shrooms to come. Haven't found one in the yard yet damn it.