# Introduction - anybody cultivating morels in IL?



## farsouthsider

Hi all, my wife and I are avid mushroom hunters and mycophiles up in Peotone, IL. I have a small indoor growing operation for oyster mushrooms, lion's mane, and a few other commonly cultivated types. I also make mushroom kits for sale in my home workshop, and I'm bootstrapping my way towards a larger grow operation someday. I do a ton of reading on the topic of mushroom cultivation and am self-taught, starting around 4-5 years ago.

We mostly hunt out in the sprawling Kankakee River State Park. My favorites to find are hen of the woods, chicken of the woods, and of course morels - although honestly it seems like everybody and their brother beat us to the morels this year. My wife loves the chanterelles especially, but we only get the little cantherellus chicagoensis around here - very small and pretty mild flavor.

My avatar photo is of the 2 morel beds I planted in my backyard this year (morchella importuna), using Tradd Cotter's layered bed method from Organic Mushroom Farming and Mycoremediation. I didn't see a morel cultivation thread in the Illinois forum.

Full disclosure:
* I do sell morel grow kits for planting - pure morchella cultures grown on sterilized hardwood/grains substrate.
* Started making the morel grow kits 2016, selling them 2017, planted mine late April 2018 - nope, no results yet. Here's to spring 2019!
* I'm really not here for spam posting or anything. I'd like to meet some IL myco friends & fiends and if you want kits, I have them, but other than that I'm just here for the applied learning.

Here are some pics of my




























































mushroom growing and whatnot.


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## farsouthsider

Some more pics


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## farsouthsider

The electricity thing was fun and I still have the spark rig, but I haven't really done a proper experiment to see if it boosts production. Now that I'm producing kits in bigger batches, all same recipe, I'll have a great control group to check against.


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## jack

farsouthsider said:


> I do sell morel grow kits for planting - pure morchella cultures grown on sterilized hardwood/grains substrate.
> * Started making the morel grow kits 2016, selling them 2017, planted mine late April 2018 - nope, no results yet. Here's to spring 2019!
> * I'm really not here for spam posting or anything. I'd like to meet some IL myco friends & fiends and if you want kits, I have them, but other than that I'm just here for the applied learning.


As long as it's about Mushrooms, it's not Spam. Post your " For Sale items " in the " Classified Section "


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## farsouthsider

Thanks Jack, I'll do that


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## RobinKGray

farsouthsider said:


> Hi all, my wife and I are avid mushroom hunters and mycophiles up in Peotone, IL. I have a small indoor growing operation for oyster mushrooms, lion's mane, and a few other commonly cultivated types. I also make mushroom kits for sale in my home workshop, and I'm bootstrapping my way towards a larger grow operation someday. I do a ton of reading on the topic of mushroom cultivation and am self-taught, starting around 4-5 years ago.
> 
> We mostly hunt out in the sprawling Kankakee River State Park. My favorites to find are hen of the woods, chicken of the woods, and of course morels - although honestly it seems like everybody and their brother beat us to the morels this year. My wife loves the chanterelles especially, but we only get the little cantherellus chicagoensis around here - very small and pretty mild flavor.
> 
> My avatar photo is of the 2 morel beds I planted in my backyard this year (morchella importuna), using Tradd Cotter's layered bed method from Organic Mushroom Farming and Mycoremediation. I didn't see a morel cultivation thread in the Illinois forum.
> 
> Full disclosure:
> * I do sell morel grow kits for planting - pure morchella cultures grown on sterilized hardwood/grains substrate.
> * Started making the morel grow kits 2016, selling them 2017, planted mine late April 2018 - nope, no results yet. Here's to spring 2019!
> * I'm really not here for spam posting or anything. I'd like to meet some IL myco friends & fiends and if you want kits, I have them, but other than that I'm just here for the applied learning.
> 
> Here are some pics of my
> View attachment 9792
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> View attachment 9802
> View attachment 9792
> View attachment 9794
> View attachment 9798
> View attachment 9800
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> mushroom growing and whatnot.


Nice job!~! I am also from IL and recently moved to TX. I have not figured it out here yet but in IL I did well


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## farsouthsider

RobinKGray said:


> Nice job!~! I am also from IL and recently moved to TX. I have not figured it out here yet but in IL I did well


Hi Robin, were you growing morels in IL? I'd love to compare notes. What is your planting method? 

I did my beds about 6 inches wider than TC's layered bed method, other than than it's the same method.


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## farsouthsider

jack said:


> As long as it's about Mushrooms, it's not Spam. Post your " For Sale items " in the " Classified Section "


jack, I saw this morning that the classified ad I posted yesterday was deleted with the following message:
"Your thread Mushroom Grow Kits for Morels, Lion's Mane, Oysters, Shiitake was deleted. Reason: spammers will be banned"


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## jack

farsouthsider said:


> jack, I saw this morning that the classified ad I posted yesterday was deleted with the following message:


Sorry about that. We had a ton of spam yesterday and I accidentally deleted it. It's back up now. sorry about that, just a mix up. Let me know if you have any other problems.


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## farsouthsider

Thanks Jack, I appreciate your considerate review and administration.


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## jack

Thanks Bro !! I keep trying.


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## trahn008

https://www.morels.com/threads/20-years-a-grower.95687/


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## blake M

I still believe.


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## Miss Jackson

farsouthsider said:


> Hi all, my wife and I are avid mushroom hunters and mycophiles up in Peotone, IL. I have a small indoor growing operation for oyster mushrooms, lion's mane, and a few other commonly cultivated types. I also make mushroom kits for sale in my home workshop, and I'm bootstrapping my way towards a larger grow operation someday. I do a ton of reading on the topic of mushroom cultivation and am self-taught, starting around 4-5 years ago.
> 
> We mostly hunt out in the sprawling Kankakee River State Park. My favorites to find are hen of the woods, chicken of the woods, and of course morels - although honestly it seems like everybody and their brother beat us to the morels this year. My wife loves the chanterelles especially, but we only get the little cantherellus chicagoensis around here - very small and pretty mild flavor.
> 
> My avatar photo is of the 2 morel beds I planted in my backyard this year (morchella importuna), using Tradd Cotter's layered bed method from Organic Mushroom Farming and Mycoremediation. I didn't see a morel cultivation thread in the Illinois forum.
> 
> Full disclosure:
> * I do sell morel grow kits for planting - pure morchella cultures grown on sterilized hardwood/grains substrate.
> * Started making the morel grow kits 2016, selling them 2017, planted mine late April 2018 - nope, no results yet. Here's to spring 2019!
> * I'm really not here for spam posting or anything. I'd like to meet some IL myco friends & fiends and if you want kits, I have them, but other than that I'm just here for the applied learning.
> 
> Here are some pics of my
> View attachment 9792
> View attachment 9794
> View attachment 9798
> View attachment 9800
> View attachment 9802
> View attachment 9792
> View attachment 9794
> View attachment 9798
> View attachment 9800
> View attachment 9802
> mushroom growing and whatnot.


That’s sad news. how could everyone have beat you if the park has been closed till the 1st? I just moved here from tx and have never looked for morels before but I figured I’d give it a shot at one of the recently opened parks and Kankakee River looked like the nicest of the ones nearby me that were opened. Either way I am excited to explore more of Illinois and the Midwest and just be outside in nature for a few hours.


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## matthewrolsen

farsouthsider said:


> Hi all, my wife and I are avid mushroom hunters and mycophiles up in Peotone, IL. I have a small indoor growing operation for oyster mushrooms, lion's mane, and a few other commonly cultivated types. I also make mushroom kits for sale in my home workshop, and I'm bootstrapping my way towards a larger grow operation someday. I do a ton of reading on the topic of mushroom cultivation and am self-taught, starting around 4-5 years ago.
> 
> We mostly hunt out in the sprawling Kankakee River State Park. My favorites to find are hen of the woods, chicken of the woods, and of course morels - although honestly it seems like everybody and their brother beat us to the morels this year. My wife loves the chanterelles especially, but we only get the little cantherellus chicagoensis around here - very small and pretty mild flavor.
> 
> My avatar photo is of the 2 morel beds I planted in my backyard this year (morchella importuna), using Tradd Cotter's layered bed method from Organic Mushroom Farming and Mycoremediation. I didn't see a morel cultivation thread in the Illinois forum.
> 
> Full disclosure:
> 
> I do sell morel grow kits for planting - pure morchella cultures grown on sterilized hardwood/grains substrate.
> Started making the morel grow kits 2016, selling them 2017, planted mine late April 2018 - nope, no results yet. Here's to spring 2019!
> I'm really not here for spam posting or anything. I'd like to meet some IL myco friends & fiends and if you want kits, I have them, but other than that I'm just here for the applied learning.
> 
> Here are some pics of my
> View attachment 9792
> View attachment 9794
> View attachment 9798
> View attachment 9800
> View attachment 9802
> View attachment 9792
> View attachment 9794
> View attachment 9798
> View attachment 9800
> View attachment 9802
> mushroom growing and whatnot.



I know that they're quite a bit less frequently found in our part of the country however, chicagoensis isn't the only type of chantrelle that are found here. Besides chicagoensis, I also regularly find cinnabarinus, _, along with Craterellus fallax as well. I do admit that out of the 30 years I've been hunting, I've only become aware of Cantharellus cibarius within the past 8 or so years. At that time I found my first annual honey hole full of them. Every season they pop up in gigantic numbers. Furthermore, the fallax are around. They're just incredibly hard to spot. I'm even somewhat convinced that there may be a white colored species in my area, as I've come across a specimen that, in every way screams chantrelle, but I haven't collected a few to do some spore prints/analysis to determine if that's the case. 

Good luck._


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