Subject: Growing morel mushrooms

From: [email-masked]
Date: 13 Sep 1994 06:54:43 -0700

Hello mycos

    Does anyone know anything about Gourmet Mushrooms, Inc.  They claim that
with a Morel Habitat Kit that you can grow Morels in your back yard.  I thought
this couldn't be done.  Has someone found the secret? or is it a scam? 

Dave

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From: [email-masked] (MycoWorld)
Date: 13 Sep 1994 23:00:10 -0400

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] writes:

> Is gourmet mushrooms, Inc. Legitimate

Yes, they've been around awhile.  Read their guarantee carefully - it
doesn't say that YOU will be able to grow the morels, only that they will
grow some morels off the spawn as a test.  It is possible to grow morels
outdoors in properly prepared beds, but it is certainly NOT a sure thing. 
Fungi Perfecti, Northwoods Retail Nursery, and others market similar kits.
 We tried one and have no results yet - although we got them started in
some pretty bad weather conditions (cold and dry).  Others report varying
degrees of success, but I haven't heard of anyone producing anything like
commercial quantities.  It doesn't cost a lot to give it a try and you
might get lucky.  It seems like morels require some specific weather
patterns to fruit reasonably.  You chances of getting those weather
patterns will, of course, be better if you have wild morels fruiting in
your vicinity.  As far as I know, only Morel Mountain (now owned by Terry
Farms), ever produced commercial quantities indoors.
-Jerry - 
The Mushroom Growers' Newsletter
[email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (Geoff.Tennant)
Date: Wed, 14 Sep 1994 06:44:20 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] writes:
>From: [email-masked]
>Subject: Growing morel mushrooms
>Date: 13 Sep 1994 06:54:43 -0700

>Dave                              

Dave, 

 I seem to remember reading a paper/abstract somewhere that some morels had 
a symbiotic (mycorrhizal) relationship with various ferns and grasses.  If 
true then surely this IS a scam of note.  Only one morel has ever been found 
in our area (in an area called Ferncliffe!),

Geoff Tennant
Pietermaritzburg
South Africa

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From: [email-masked] (Stamets 1)
Date: 14 Sep 1994 14:44:07 -0400

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked]
(Geoff.Tennant) writes:

i have been growing morels for several years outdoors. our success is
about
75%, and is weather-dependent. we have published quite a bit on the
subject
as you probably know.

paul stamets

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From: [email-masked] (Richard Winder)
Date: Thu, 15 Sep 1994 20:29:40 GMT

>this couldn't be done.  Has someone found the secret? or is it a scam? 

Encouraging morels to grow in your back yard has always been possible, and is
often successful- it is not exactly the same thing as cultivation though, 
since success depends on the habitat, weather, phase of the moon, etc.  All
you are doing is introducing inoculum into an area, adjusting pH, nutrients,
etc., and hoping that it will fruit one day (assuming morel inoculum isn't 
already in the area).  What *is* difficult is farming morels dependably, on
a schedule, under controlled conditions.  A person named Ower, along with
others, won two U.S. patents for generating morels under controlled
conditions- a Michigan company is supposed to be scaling up production of
morels based on these patents.  Unfortunately, the methods seem to be 
difficult (if not impossible) to duplicate in most labs I've heard about.  
The methods involve careful control of temperature, humidity, and free water
in the substrate.  Other workers have more or less defined the conditions 
under which sclerotial primordia can be formed in agar, partly basing their
ideas on the patent work.  If a split plate is used, with water agar on one 
side and nutrient agar on the other, mycelium inoculated on the plain agar 
side will import nutrients from the nutrient rich section to form sclerotia.  
I've duplicated this effect in my lab with M. deliciosa, and by using malt 
extract/jerusalem artichoke agar as a nutrient source, with some ground 
seashell thrown in the plain agar side, I have not only generated tons of
sclerotia, but I've noticed the generation of substantial amounts of tissue 
on a few (5%) of the petri dish covers where free water accumulates as 
condensation.  It is not enough to form an ascocarp, but the 
cells are clearly forming a parenchymatous tissue mass about an inch wide and
several mm thick in some cases (much larger than a sclerotial primordium).  
This tissue generation doesn't appear to come about in the same way that
Ower illustrates in some of his work- perhaps there is more than one avenue
for generating tissue in this genus.  The tissue eventually turns
darker brown and ceases growth, probably due to limited water and production 
of staling or inhibitory substances.  With a better water wick and a healthy
dose of ascorbic acid (pH balanced) to take care of staling compounds, I'm 
sure it wouldn't be too difficult to generate at least a partial ascocarp.  
Hopefully, a simple method like this could dilute patent infrigement problems 
somewhat (which would please me to no end).	-RSW

  RICHARD WINDER                    Title: Research Scientist
  Canadian Forest Service           Phone: (604) 363-0773
  Victoria, B.C.                    Internet: [email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (P. Gordon Werner)
Date: 25 Sep 1994 08:25:13 GMT

[email-masked] (Geoff Tennant) writes:

>true then surely this IS a scam of note.

I don't think this is the case; if morels do engage in mycorrhizae, then 
its certainly not of the obligate kind.  The fact that Morels do so well 
in the wake of disturbance, especially forest fires, seems to rule aginst 
their being obligate mycorrhizal fungi.

Has there been much research into why morels fruit so abundantly in the 
wake of fires?  The explanation I've heard is that the sugars released by 
burnt/broken shallow roots into the soil are good for morels.

PGW

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From: [email-masked] (Richard Winder)
Date: Fri, 30 Sep 1994 16:35:00 GMT

>>true then surely this IS a scam of note.

I think I've seen reports for at least one type of tree, too.

>their being obligate mycorrhizal fungi.

Agreed.  Under these conditions they operate more like cryophiles- microbes
which thrive best in very cold, nutrient rich soils, but are usually 
outcompeted in warmer soils.  Whole forests used to be burnt down in Russia
to encourage morels- a practice which surely would not have become popular
if it was necessary to have mycorrhizae.

>burnt/broken shallow roots into the soil are good for morels.
Morels seem to really love calcium, hence their association with ashes and
limestone.  (The pectin in apples also probably has a good deal of calcium)
Some work has shown that its not only the calcium that's important, but
what usually comes with it- low concentrations of manganese.

They also seem to love wood or wood extracts or cellulose- I'm not sure if 
anything has been narrowed down there.  The largest fruitings I've heard
about on Vancouver Island occur on old Indian middens, where huge heaps of 
clam shells are overlayed with centuries of decaying moss. Shells are high
in manganese as well as calcium, and I assume the dead moss acts as a
nutrient source and water/waste wick.	Then again, maybe they are
mycorrhizal with the living moss and ferns on top.	-RSW