Good Morel Habitat Vs. Bad Morel Habitat


Years ago, I didn’t know anything about morel mushrooms.  I didn’t know what they looked like.  I didn’t know how they tasted.  I didn’t even know they existed.

Then one day I attended a mushroom program with a local club.  Experts in the club introduced me to morels.  “Here’s what morels look like,” they said.  “You’ll find them all over this park.”

“Great,” I thought to myself.  “I now know everything I need to know.”

Except I still hardly knew anything.

Sure, I quickly learned how to identify morels, and I heard a few things about looking in certain areas:  “Look for elms, apples, and poplars.  Morels really like sweet soil.”

But where would I find elms, apples, and poplars?  What the heck is sweet soil?

It soon dawned on me that knowledge of mushrooms wasn’t enough.  If I really wanted to improve my skills, I needed to learn tree identification.  I needed to learn ecology.  I needed to learn geology.

And so I learned as much as I could.  Slowly but consistently, I developed a wider set of skills.  Eventually, I became a better mushroom hunter.

Today, I interact with wild landscapes a bit differently than I did back then.  I now look for connections.  I look for relationships.  I look at the bigger picture.

All this to say, if you want to find morels this year, I strongly encourage you to learn the connections that bind morels to their ecosystems.  In the following video, I discuss how to approach morel mushroom hunting through a more holistic lens.

 
© 2025 Learn Your Land with Adam Haritan