Cultivating morel mushrooms: The ultimate guide

Morel mushrooms are one of the most sought-after edible mushrooms. The body of the morel fruit is characterized by its fluffy appearance, with a distinctive ribbed and pitted cap. 

During the spring, morel mushrooms can be collected in a variety of geographic locations, including grasslands, mixed hardwood, and conical forests, northern Pacific rainforests, and mountainous areas of semi-tropical islands, for example, Jamaica.

Morels can also be found growing in disturbed areas such as flower beds and recently burned forests, and with live apple, ash, and spawn trees, while a large number of fruits have been found around dead elms.

Growing morel mushrooms indoors in a controlled environment began ever since Ower published his findings in 1982, and in 1990 Volk and Leonard described the entire life cycle. The sclerotium is an important part of the life cycle of the Morchella, where the cultivation of sclerotia is a key discovery for growing morels.

Growing sclerotia involves inoculation of a sterile cold container, either with mycelium or Petri plate mycelium or mycelium covered with grain spawn.

You can use glass, polypropylene, or autoclavable polypropylene bags as containers. The contents of the sclerotial container consist of the lower layer of hydrated grains, e.g. wheat, and the upper layer of hydrated soil. The key to growing morels is the mass production of sclerotia.

The cultures are sealed and incubated for four to five weeks after the inoculations of sclerotia containers. During this time, the mycelium grows at a rate of one and a half centimeters per day from the soil layer.

After reaching the nutritious grain layer, elongations of the hyphal slows down and extensive secondary branching of the hyphal begins. At this point, the hyphae hydrolyze the grain, collect the released nutrients, and transfer these nutrients to the old hyphal cells.

Three weeks after inoculation, the sclerotia changes from white to rusty, and as maturity continues, the sclerotia turn brown due to melanization. Once the sclerotia have matured and are fully melanized, they can be cut for planting.

Sclerotia and soil layer are removed and placed on a horticulture tray. Morel cultures are made by adding sclerotia and the contents are covered with a moist soil layer. Once ready, the cultures are rinsed and colonized in the dark for a period of six days.

Cultures are induced seven days after cultures are prepared. Induction involves complete hydration of the sclerotia, accelerating the hyphae growing from the sclerotia process to start fruiting. 

Three days after induction, hyphal growth covers cultures with conidia formation. After seven to ten days, primordia, 1 mm in height and diameter, are produced by single hyphae. Primordia grow at a rate of approximately one millimeter per day, giving rise to a white apothecial fundament.

After eighteen to twenty-one days, a completely different fruiting structure emerges at a height of one centimeter and looks like a small white morel with a separate cap with stripes and ridges. The rate of progression from this point accelerates to one to one and a half centimeters per day and changes from white to gray.

Ascosporogenesis corresponds with a decline in the growth rate; color changes to tan, the final color of the ascocarp becomes pale ocher at scope maturity and mushrooms are harvested before ascosporogenesis.