We’ve made it through the basics! Now it’s time to get into the nitty-gritty of morels in Colorado. These specifics will hopefully help guide you to finding more of these weirdly fascinating and wildly captivating mushrooms! First up, yellow morels.
About Yellow Morels
Yellows or blondes are probably the most well-known and frequently hunted type of morel. They’re commonly found in the Southeast and Midwest in late winter and early spring as they move their way closer and closer to fruiting in Colorado.
Before we get into the details I want to do a very brief recap of traits. This will be handy for anyone who skipped the article on Taxonomy and Look-alikes. Several species of yellow morels show up in the areas I mentioned above, but as far as I can tell, in Colorado, we only have one, Morchella americana. As with all morels, the yellow morels in Colorado will be completely hollow and have a cap that attaches to the stem at the bottom edge of the cap. Yellow morels have yellow to tan pits with lighter-colored ridges.
So, how the heck do we find them!? That’s exactly what I aim to teach you through the rest of this post. We’ll start with the when.
When to Look for Yellow Morels
Generally, yellow morels will start fruiting in mid to late April and can fruit until mid or late May and sometimes even early June in ideal conditions. More specifically, all morels tend to start fruiting when soil temperatures reach about 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Remember the soil thermometer from the gear list in the last section? This is why it’s an important piece of gear to have with you! In addition, knowing your elevation can help you pinpoint when you'll have the best chance of success. However, I will save that until a little later in the troubleshooting part of this post.
That probably seems like a pretty simple answer, and I’ve kept it fairly general on purpose. Morels, other mushrooms, and even plants will often surprise you with what they decide to do. Occasionally, people find morels in front yards or before temperatures seem correct. There are always exceptions to the normal, however, the above parameters should cover most of when you’ll find yellow morels in Colorado.
Where you’ll find them is also fairly simple if you don’t get into the minutia. Low-elevation riparian areas. If that was all you knew about yellow morels and you just wandered the riverlands, you would eventually find a morel. Luckily for you, I like getting more detailed than that!
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Where to Look for Yellow Morels
Riparian is defined as “relating to or situated on the banks of a river.” Simply, the area around a river, stream, or creek. As a note, I include the floodplain in my definition of riparian. If you open a satellite map of the Foothills and zoom in on any of the major rivers, you can very obviously tell where the river-loving plant life stops, either naturally or, in many cases, unnaturally, where it butts up to urban development. This would be the riparian area and your starting place for yellow morels!
There are no specific plants that morels associate within Colorado, but there are several that you should be familiar with because they can help you locate the right habitats for yellow morels. However, before we get into those, I want to talk about a term that you’ll see thrown around when people talk about Colorado more. That term is indicator plant or indicator species.
In my experience, beginners often think indicator suggests an association and get stuck on looking for certain indicator species because they think that will magically lead them to the morels. An indicator species will be indicating one or two things: timing and/or habitat. The other issue with that term is that people often think of them as sure things, which is not the case. Indicators merely suggest that you might be on the right track. I suggest being familiar with some of the common ones but taking them for what they are. None of the indicator species you’ll find floating around online for Colorado morels will guarantee your success.
Now, let’s talk about habitats and plants you should look for when trying to find yellow morels! Not all riparian habitats are created equal, and knowing what to focus on can help you narrow down your search area immensely. The first two features I look for are mature cottonwoods and grass. I have never found a yellow morel in Colorado that was not near one or both of those. You will often read about how narrowleaf cottonwood (Populus angustifolia) is the species to look for, but in my experience, the type of cottonwood hasn’t been a large factor. As long as one of the cottonwood species is around, it is probably a decent morel habitat. Other species of cottonwoods that you will find in Colorado include plains (P. deltoides) and lanceleaf (P. acuminata). We also have many hybrid cottonwoods planted as landscape, shelterbelt, or windbreak trees, but these aren’t usually found in riparian areas. As for the specific grass species. I don’t know them, nor do I think they’re important. Yellow morels seem to like grass!
Other tree species that you may see in this habitat include boxelder (Acer negundo), elms (Ulmus spp.), ash (Fraxinus spp.), and plums and cherries (Prunus spp.).
Knowing these species isn’t necessary to successfully find morels, but knowing more about the surrounding landscape never hurts. Plus, some of them can provide other goods to forage, like plums, cherries, and elms! You will also likely come across some wild asparagus (Asparagus officinalis) and oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus pulmonarius) if you keep your eyes peeled! Riparian habitats are lush places full of wild food!
Important Note: Poison ivy, Toxicodendron rydbergii, can also commonly be found in the same habitat. Be familiar with this plant and avoid it at all costs!
How to Find Yellow Morels
By now, you've probably already had a few spots come to mind that might be good areas to hunt for morels. Maybe you drive by a grassy cottonwood forest on your way to work or walk your dog along a river trail. Either way, there are a lot of areas that match the general habitat that I've described, and some of them can be fairly vast! So, how do you find the morels that may be there aside from just wandering around hoping to stumble on them? I have a few tactics and troubleshooting tips that have been successful for me in the past, which I will detail next. Don't forget to use the morel mindset tips!
Walking through a large, mature stand of cottonwoods in a floodplain can be a little overwhelming. It will likely feel like there's no chance of you ever finding a morel in the mess of trees, logs, grasses, dead leaves, and everything else. However, you can pinpoint some areas within the sea of grass and dead leaves that will be more likely to hold morels. The first few features I gravitate towards are piles of dead branches, logs, and low spots within the terrain. All of these hold a little more water than the surrounding environments and create small micro-climates that morels seem to prefer. Low spots can often be less grassy and a little easier to search for morels in, though that's not saying much; there are still plenty of other hiding spots for them! Remember, go slow!
My next pinpointing suggestion is if the above doesn't work for you or isn't applicable, look for dead cottonwoods. Morels seem to like disturbance events, such as fires, trees dying, and floods. I've heard stories from people who cut down cottonwoods in their yards and had dozens or even hundreds of morels fruit soon after. That said, please don't go cut down your landscape trees in hopes of finding morels!
Cottonwoods are fast-growing trees, and because of this, they regularly shed branches or die. These events can cause morels to fruit, so if you see any dead trees during your hunt, it's worth looking around them! Keep your eyes out for oysters as well.
Troubleshooting
If you still seem to be having trouble finding morels, it may be time to start troubleshooting. I mean assessing the environmental conditions and other information available to ensure you're hunting in the right area!
The first factor to check is soil temperature, as mentioned previously. If the soil is below about 50 degrees Fahrenheit, it is likely too early in that spot. Your options are to wait a few days for the soil to warm up, assuming nightly temperatures are consistently above freezing, or to move to an area that is lower in elevation or gets more sun. If your thermometer is reading around 60 degrees, you may need to consider heading up a little in elevation if possible. Speaking of elevations, let's talk about a couple of other ways to consider elevation when it comes to morels.
The first is to look online. There are plenty of resources and pages full of people sharing their hauls of morels, and they will often willingly give you an estimation of their elevation. Using this information, you can deduce where you should start your hunt. If they were at 5,000 feet and it's been 5 days, you may consider moving a little higher, especially if it's been dry in your area.
The next way you can use elevation to your advantage only works if you've found some morels already. Examine those morels. Are they fresh, plump, not dried out? You're probably in the right elevation. On the other hand, they might be quite large with double-walled stems, or maybe they're a bit dried out with crispy ridges. These would both indicate that I need to think about moving up in elevation.
Finally, if you've tried everything I've suggested so far and still have no luck, my first tip would be not to give up! Second, try a different area. Sometimes, even seemingly perfect spots won't have morels. Give it some time, and I'm confident you can be a successful morel hunter!
Next up will be the black morels!
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