Highs on May 14th soared into the 100s! Not only is this the earliest triple-digit heat in Iowa, but it happened for folks who scraped the frost off their windshields two days earlier! Some even just put up the shovels for the season after record snow. What a wild spring 2013 has brought to Iowa?!
Well, we're leveling off now with lows in the 50s/60s and highs in the 70s/80s. This is perfect weather for morel mushrooms, and they're popping up throughout the state now. I am finding them on various terrain features and under widely different stages of development. Now is a great time to check out old hot spots to see if they're back this year!
Little greys and yellows are becoming more widespread on gentle west and even north facing slopes. Extreme west and south facing slopes, although dry, are producing baseball-sized Bigfoot morels! I think morels must not require wet topsoil, because some of these spots had powder dry soil. Perhaps subsoil moisture is much more important.
Most of my searching on north facing and east facing slopes has been fruitless. The grass is also becoming a big issue, so be sure to slow down and look twice if you're in a good area that has taller grass. I circled a spot by a large dead elm several times and found 2-3 more on each additional pass.
Changing your point of view often brings a few of those fungi into focus. Their morel-o-flauge makes them tough to spot sometimes ;-)
I'd estimate that the season is about halfway through here in central Iowa. Our extreme heat has seared the ground and caused a surface spike several degrees warmer than previous days. My hope is this launches a bumper crop of the big ones, but the heat was pretty dry. Fortunately April and the beginning of May were abnormally wet, and that should promote more fungi this year than in years past.
Good luck!
No comments:
Post a Comment