Growing up in Indiana I loved eating morel mushrooms, now In Atlanta and moving to N. Florida in the next year or so I’ve been doing research on growing mushrooms from spores and started wondering if morel could be grown in Florida? Has anyone found a method of growing morel mushrooms from spores in hot climates? I was thinking about having a salad greenhouse and thought I could build a mushroom greenhouse has well.
Morels have been found in every state, but FL isn’t great area for them. Most of the species of morels (there are lots) seem to need cool/cold weather. Only landscape morels have been cultivated for indoor grows, and they aren’t particularly good tasting. I have a greenhouse and have been picking morels for over 30 years, and I’ve never heard of anyone growing them successfully in a greenhouse. There are, however, tons of other mushrooms you can easily grown indoors or outdoors. It’s a fun hobby.
1 Like
I’d contact some of the folks at Fungi Perfecti or the MushroomPeople at The Farm (if either of these places are still in business). They would be the most knowledgeable, and may have kits available.
1 Like
I used to hang out quite a bit on mushroom cultivation boards. Morels are difficult to grow nobody grows commercial. There are kits to buy spawn but even with them very few people succeed.
And i am deeply leery of FP, prefer other vendors. Stamets pioneered mushroom cultivation but he also makes a lot of claims that nobody else can seem to reproduce or verify and I don’t care for his business model including poor labeling of actual shiitake strains
2 Likes
I have been reading about shiitake growing for years, finally pulled the plug last spring and started doing it myself. Have 35 logs put up right now. By all accounts, the place to get shiitake plugs is Field and Forest. They have great prices and a stellar reputation.
Don’t waste your time with morel kits. They don’t work the vast majority of the time. Most successful shroom kits us a wood or straw substrate. Morels don’t grow on these. Every few years someone claims they have it figured out, and sells a method. Then a few years later they disappear…
2 Likes
tried growing shiitake on sugar maple logs but they never took. maybe our winters are too cold. oysters, wine caps and blewits grow great here. as well as wild boletes under the spruces.
1 Like
Maple can be tough because shiitake will grow but the bark often peels… shiitake dont grow/fruit on stripped logs
2 Likes
I used buy into the “find morels around dead and dying trees” aphorism. However my yearly go-to spots now are places with many 1-2" river birch saplings. I am not sure why that is. Maybe there is a lot of root turnover in the competitive environment with all the trees in one spot.
Also here is a patent describing the culture of morels. Would be interesting to try in a rootstock stool bed. https://www.google.com/patents/US6907691
1 Like
I can promise you that the dead/dying trees tip works. Here in Maryland, if you can find recently dead or dying elms, apples, poplars or box elders you are extremely likely to find morels. But it’s also true that morels often defy conventional wisdom. I’ve seen them growing out of mossy stumps, coming out from under the foundation of a house, deep in boggy wetlands, out in grassy fields with not a tree within 100’, etc etc. You just never know. Persistence is unpredictable also. I have one spot that has produced pretty much without fail for 30 years. I have other spots where I find dozens one year- and I get all excited that I have a new spot- then never another morel for a decade after that.
2 Likes
only suitable wood for them up here. no oak. have ash but has same issue. bark stayed on for 2 years but they never colonized. used plugs from everything mushrooms and field and forest. used northern strains too. a lot of work for no reward. had covered in shade cloth under my big spruces on the east side. don’t get it. oysters on aspen tho. grow like crazy!
1 Like
I believe Field and Forest uses birch pretty regularly.
Might be worth a shot.
That said, you can always stick to oysters, and stropharia are more of an annual anyway.
2 Likes
from their list of suitable wood for shiitake, birch was poor. beech is another good wood but same bark issue.seems the best is oak so I’ve just given up trying to grow shiitake. on a positive note, last fall i had a huge flush of blewits in a patch i thought didn’t colonize. unfortunately by time i noticed they were past prime. i harvested them anyway. made a slurry and mixed it into my 2 finished compost piles. come next fall i should have blewits coming up with my wine caps around my bushes and trees!
1 Like