Okay….so the morel harvest season in the entire upper midwest region is in the rearview mirror for 2009. BUT…..July shroom TREE hunting in the upper midwest is in full swing and is as easy as it comes. In late April stretching into early May many of the hardwoods are still cycling through the budding process. Isolating “dead” elm trees & corresponding morchella turf can be difficult even for the trained eye especially at a distance. Attached are a series of pictures very recently snapped of an elm tree I’ve been keeping tabs on. First signs of dutch elm infection were visible in August of 2008, almost one year ago. Limb by limb the leaves went from lucious green fully feathered to shriveled up brown & barron. This past May only a couple major lower branches budded out with leaves. The last of those leaves are brown & shriveled. In another months time they’ll be gone. RIP
Not all elm trees take a year to actually die once the disease sets in. Some are completely dead in a couple of months (usually smaller trees) and I’ve watched some take as long as 2 and 1/2 years! You guessed it! Bigger trees.
You can see from the pictures picking out the dead versus the healthy tree limbs in a forest regardless of tree type is easy. Marking the dead or dying trees on a plot map is just as easy. Crazy? Maybe….but this saves me a TON of time in the woods when actually shroom hunting. Next May there is a high probability of shrooms being present under the bony canopy of this “fresh” dead elm. Other factors such as soil type and grade get the thumbs up. This wooded terrain of this location has historically produced respectable numbers of morels as well.
I also snapped a picture of the trunk depicting the vines using the tree to get verticle. In May or the real deal hunting season most vines bud out with leaves ahead of most trees ~ especially elm trees. Too many would be successful morel hunters are simply fooled by the greenery of the vines and walk right past 3″ morels ~ especially fresh diers with all bark still attached. I’ve guided enough folks in yester years and speak from experience on that one.
I bumped into some morels turking hunting this spring and I said to myself that I should make an effort to find more of them next year! 
