Morels

Greetings!  Has anyone on here successfully inoculated Morels in their local woodlands?  When I visited Ohio years ago they were very abundant in the local area.  I've casually searched around here (Tennessee) without success.  Next year I want to take a local foraging class to be rightfully exposed to it, as I am a Floridian and not native to this area.  I've got what I consider to be a perfect climate/area for them and I wanted to help/encourage nature along, ha!  Any tips or ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Blessings...Hugh

What I’ve heard about morels up in Tennessee is that they like tulip poplar. Here, they need ash trees to thrive (almost always. I did find one next to a small slippery elm this spring.) It seems to vary wildly by the region. Some say they’re actually different species that look identical but have different habitats.

Thanks!  I've got the Tulip Poplars on my property and a a nice creek bottom.  I feel like the area is ripe for them, I will look into what kind of species are for my area.  Many Blessings!

I've had some success with growing Landscape Morels (Morchella importuna) in my garden. Check out this thread I started a while back:

https://permies.com/t/263537/grow-landscape-morels-garden

However, because of recent research indicating that some cardboard is contaminated with nasty "forever" chemicals called PFAS, I would advise caution about my method. In fact, I'm currently trying to figure out how to modify my method to eliminate cardboard, or how to test for PFAS in cardboard before using it.

Everything Mushrooms was a mushroom supply company based in Knoxville, Tennessee where I used to buy my morel mushroom spawn. Unfortunately, they seemed to have gone out of business.  So you might want to check out Field & Forest Products in Wisconsin for morel spawn, as well as info on how to grow them. They have excellent mushroom growing kits and have lots of info about growing morels. They are very helpful and even will answer your questions over the phone. Good luck!

https://fieldforest.net/how-to-plant-morels-landscape-morel/

Here's a map that shows where morels were found this past spring. If you zoom in to Tennessee, you can see that your new state is a hot spot for morels:

https://www.thegreatmorel.com/morel-sightings/

What an amazing resource, thank you so much!