Myth Busters

Some of these interesting facts about Morels may be quite controversial to many.

I have done a lot searching into the way that morels appear, but hadn’t had a whole lot of luck until I tried a test myself. I found a large group (75 so far) of morels around a dying elm above my city home. I left a couple of them just to keep an eye on for a couple days, and to my surprise after only 5days each of them had more than doubled in size! I am really kicking myself for having picked the ones I did, now knowing that they could be so much bigger than the “babies” they were when I picked them. Red Wing, Minnesota . Just thought you might like the information. -Stephanie

Stephanie, Glad you are a believer now. I have so many people that hold to their claim that they pop up overnight. I did a growth study a couple years ago and found they actually slowly grow up to a period of three weeks and stay edible. I have photos in the member areas showing them about every 3-5 days up to 3 weeks. A small gray will turn into a big yellow. So many Morel Hunters, (including myself up until a few years ago) believed that Gray Morels was an earlier separate species than the Yellow Morels. I called them Gray Sponge and Yellow Sponge. Little did I know that they were one in the same, just a younger and older version. Pam Kaminski, a longtime member, also did a similar study a few years back with Black Morels, and found the same thing, slow growth over 3 week period. The biggest problem is, most people hunt in the same areas, so leaving the small ones is not an option. -Chris M

This is the same mushroom after 3 weeks, tripled in size, and I would guess that it had already been up for at least one week prior to the first photo. An exception to this is if it would get up to 90 degrees+ for several days, it would make them rapidly expand and spoil soon after. If you have a Spring with cool temps and plenty of moisture, then expect a very slow gradual growth. You can view this entire study as well as the Black Morel study in the member areas.- Chris M

2. Many other interesting Myths are busted in the member areas! This page is a sample Myth Buster.