Mushrooms on the Lawn by Jeff Rugg on Creators.com

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Mushrooms on the Lawn

Q: We found mushrooms in our yard that don't look like the typical white lawn mushrooms. We picked up a book at the library and they appear to be the famous morel mushrooms. We haven't tried eating them yet, but we were wondering why they are growing in our yard and if we can keep producing them?

A: Morel mushrooms grow in a relationship with tree roots. Even though they are a popular mushroom, there is still a lot that is unknown about their life cycle. They are often found near dead and dying elms, apple trees and some evergreens. It appears that they can live many years in a beneficial relationship with these trees, getting and giving needed nutrients through the tree roots. It also seems that they decay dead and dying tree roots.

They often go into the reproductive stage and produce hundreds of visible mushrooms when trees die. We don't know if they are doing so because they have lost a food source and are trying to spread to new areas via spores, or if they are benefiting from an abundance of food supplied by the dead roots. Either way, they are often found near dead and dying trees, especially elms and apples. If you don't have one in your yard, perhaps a neighbor's tree is dying.

If you live in a wooded area, there may be morels every spring, but you haven't noticed them. If you are in a typical suburban subdivision, this find may be a rare case that might be over or could last a few years as the tree roots decay away.

Speaking of the lawn mushrooms, there are dozens of species that develop in lawns and flowerbeds or on tree trunks and stumps.

Many, if not most, are not poisonous, but many will still cause an upset stomach. I recommend you not only find good identification books for your area, but also find local individuals or classes that will teach you more than just a quick identification. For a good starting book, I recommend you get "Edible Wild Mushrooms of North America" by David Fischer and Alan Bessette.

To grow mushrooms for eating, the safest way is to buy a kit that supplies the mushroom spores and the growing medium for them to grow on.

Many people want to get rid of mushrooms growing in the yard and landscape. If you have little kids or pets that might try nibbling on them, then go out and remove them or stomp on them, but for the rest of us, just leave them alone. They are beneficial -- your plants (including your lawn grass) couldn't grow without them.

Depending on the available amount of nutrients, the soil temperature and soil moisture, they will occasionally bloom for a week or 10 days. During that time, you may not like them, but you should thank them for decaying organic matter and for helping make nutrients available to the plant roots.

E-mail questions to Jeff Rugg, University of Illinois Extension at jrugg@illinois.edu. To find out more about Jeff Rugg and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.