'Very good year': Bumper crop of morel mushrooms in Thompson-Okanagan
Foragers are having fun picking morel mushrooms in the Thompson-Okanagan region this spring as there is an abundance this year.
Enderby resident Dan Ginn has been picking the tasty fungus for three decades and gathered a big haul in the Shuswap earlier this month.
“It is a very good year for morels, it has been damp and cool,” he told iNFOnews.ca. “This helps particularly in wildfire scorched zones where water doesn’t stay long.
“Morels are more prolific in fringe areas where the fire meets the unburned forest, especially where a ground fire is patchy.”
A popular mushroom for cooking with, morels appear between March and June in BC, depending on local conditions. As the weather gets warmer, foragers move to higher elevations to find them.
Some morels grow without being prompted by wildfires around cottonwood stands and ornamental ash, while others grow in much larger numbers in areas that were burned the previous summer, according to Wild Harvest BC.
As with most mushrooms, a good rain followed by a week of sunshine indicates a good time to go foraging.
Morels vary a lot in shape, size and colour but are distinctive looking with blunt, cone-shaped caps that are covered in deep pits. They have white stalks, rough exteriors and are hollow inside.
They are prized for their mild, nutty flavours, and some foragers cook them up right away while others dehydrate them to sell to restaurants or to use later.
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Ginn doesn’t sell his mushrooms, he alder smokes them to dehydrate them to use for cooking or as gifts, but he said there are people selling them in social media groups.
The mushrooms were selling for $15 to $18 per pound this year but the price has dropped recently due all the morels flooding the market.
While Ginn recommends looking for morels in previously burned areas, he still has his secret spots where he finds them every spring.
In past years, when there has been a bumper crop of morels, the tasty fungi were found in large numbers in the South Okanagan, Oliver, Okanagan Falls and near Vernon on Westside Road.
Shawn Kisielius said in a previous interview with iNFOnews.ca, pickers should leave a few mushrooms behind in each patch to help future generations of mushrooms and picked mushrooms should be carried in baskets that allow spores to fall onto the grounds while the picker walks. He added pickers are expected to ask permission before wandering onto private property or First Nations territory.
If you aren't sure if the mushrooms you are picking are edible, the best advice is to buy the mushroom from someone who's an expert.
Go here if you're looking for morel mushroom recipes.
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