By Cheyenne Gain
Lamp staff
JACKSONVILLE — Logan Scott found a morel mushroom this season that was 10 inches tall. Not quite a record breaker, but still one to keep a picture of. The 20-year-old was with his girlfriend when they found it, along with 9.5 pounds of mushrooms that day, and found another 10 pounds the next day.
“We were walking along and there were some in the dirt roadway her grandparents had made, I looked in the woods a little and saw more. We went in a little farther and I saw it,” Scott said.
Often mushrooms grow to a few inches tall, which is why Scott was amazed to see a 10 inch tall mushroom.
“My girlfriend screamed. She has been mushroom hunting since she was a child, but this was my first real trip out to look,” Scott said.
It is a rare find to get 9.5 pounds in one spot, along with one some giant ones.
The couple found 10-, 8-, and 7-inch-tall mushrooms. The three weighed 1.5 pounds. Generally, it takes anywhere from 10 to 20 mushrooms to weigh out a pound. Of course, it all depends on the size of mushroom found.
A pound of mushrooms in this area usually sells anywhere from $25 to $45 a pound. People often sell them to people through friends and family, or to restaurants.
“Near Chicago they are selling a plate full for $50 dollars,” said John Markley.
A plate of mushrooms, already cooked weighs maybe a half-pound, he said. Different restaurants will sell them for more of less, but often they buy them $80 to $100 a pound and still make a profit.
“I sold most of mine to a guy in Chicago for $70 a pound, and he turned around and resold them for $110 a pound. Kind of sucks for me, but I also made more than I would have around Springfield”, Kevin Manning says. A huge profit can be made if you know where to find them.
People all have a different opinion on where to find the morel mushroom. Some believe they are found under dead Elm and Ash trees. Just being a dead tree doesn’t cut it though; it needs to have died that year, or the year before. Trees that have been dead 10-plus years won’t have anything under them.
Others believe that it is live sycamore trees, or hard or soft maple trees. It may be a combination of the two trees together that produce them, although some think it may be that Sycamore trees shed their bark every year.
In other cases it can be they are found along creeks, because the spores have traveled from the original tree. Alongside creeks or in little valleys near streams is often a good spot to begin looking because they can come from anywhere.
Toward the end of the mushrooms season, many find them underneath pine trees. It is thought that the pine needles are what cause the mushrooms to grown. The pines will shed their needles year after years, producing mushrooms.
Every mushroom season is different, and it is because of the weather. It must rain some and the ground must become warm, but still stay moist. This year has been one of the best in a few years. Last year, was a horrible year for the mushrooms.
If people know where to find them, because it is all available on the “nternet why don’t they just find them themselves? The answer is usually pretty simple; they don’t have anywhere to look. Public land is usually combed over pretty well.
You have to be the first to get there or else your chances are slim.
Many people don’t have the land to find them; so many food producers have tried to re-create the situations in which people find mushrooms to be able to sell them at grocery store and mass-produce them. It has yet to be done, because so many different factors play into how mushrooms will grow each year.
For generations, people have also passed down the tradition of finding mushrooms. Larry Rig has been teaching his son, Ryan Rig, how to find mushrooms. Ryan is only 6 years old and already has a knack for finding them.
“I show my son, because it’s fun to find something out in the wild that you can eat. I also enjoy spending time with him,” Larry Rig said. Many parents don’t show their children for the money aspect of mushrooms, but more the fun it can be.
“Its like an Easter egg hunt,” Ryan said. He is right it is like looking for a little Easter egg, but out in the forest and you have no idea where they could be. The season for mushrooms also falls around Easter.
Cheyenne Gain can be reached at lamp@llcc.edu.
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