| Submitted by Forester, Russ Richardson
If you've been having a hard time finding morels this year, check those old pear trees. This spring has been incredibly wet and the morel crop has been fairly decent in older poplar woods and a few places where their not normally expected.
Often, many local people head out to abandoned apple orchards looking for morels when they might have a decent mess as close as their local pear tree.
At several locations in the West Fork area the ground beneath old pear trees has been sprouting hoards of morels. Nearly all the morels will be found within eight feet of the stem of the tree and it can take as long as 15 minutes to find them beneath one tree if the grass has grown too tall.
120 morels from beneath a single old pear tree in some local woods.
The Swiss Army knife used to harvest the mushrooms is pictured above for comparison. The mushrooms shown in the green bowl are the third and smallest harvest of morels this season from beneath another pear tree.
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