Lagrange fungi farmer Magan Mishio found her first patch of wild black morel mushrooms last week after years of fruitless searching.
It was a welcome discovery at the start of Maine’s mushroom season, especially after a dry 2025 made some species hard to find, if they appeared at all.
“It’s like a treasure hunt,” she said. “It’s like finding gold out in the forest.”
Maine foragers like Mishio are seeing early signs of an abundant spring mushroom season as the soil warms and rain continues to fall. They’re cautiously optimistic about the months to come while expecting climate change will continue shifting how mushrooms fruit in the future.
Mushroom foraging provides food and medicine, but enthusiasts find it’s also a source of wonder that connects them with nature. For Greg Marley, a forager and educator based in Knox County, mushrooms have provided an endless learning experience for 50 years.
This spring, he’s noticed black and yellow morel mushrooms popping up in some parts of the state. Morels are popular edibles but harder to find in parts of Maine because they don’t like acidic soils, though they might turn up near elm or white ash trees, or in old apple orchards.
Marley has also observed numerous toxic false morels and some bull nose false morels this year.
Small ephemeral mushrooms are fruiting, too. Pheasantbacks have appeared on elms, and so have little nubs of white tissue on trees that will grow into reishi mushrooms.
Spring oyster mushrooms will follow soon, and could be abundant if the slow and steady rain keeps up, according to Marley.
“We’re starting out gangbusters,” he said.
Later in the season, other popular edible species including golden chanterelles, black trumpets, hen of the woods, lion’s maine, hedgehog, shaggy maine, lobster and puffball mushrooms emerge.
Some mushrooms are decomposers, others grow in mutually beneficial relationships with live trees and still others are parasites.
Which ones appear, and in what quantity, depends on a few key factors, according to Marley: seasonality, rainfall patterns and available tree species. Some mushrooms fruit at different points between the spring and fall, and need warm enough soil and enough moisture to do so.
Maine’s growing season is an average of 16 days longer than in 1950, according to the state, and rain is falling in shorter, stronger downpours. Weather can suddenly turn hot in summer, while winters see more free-thaw cycles with less snow cover that melts earlier.
The state is also seeing more “flash droughts” that come on quickly.
The past two Maine summers were dry, especially 2025, when serious drought conditions gripped the state after a rainy spring. Drought lingered but has improved this month, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
Many mushrooms simply did not fruit that summer and fall, according to Marley — though he did find bumper crops of puffballs. But black trumpets were absent, and had been limited the year before.
Questions remain about how last year’s drought may have affected this year’s mushrooms, he said. It’s possible the species that grow with trees could take longer to recover, while the decomposers — which include most early spring varieties — might “explode.”
Throughout the season, mushrooms growing with trees saw limited fruiting in July, possibly because of flash drought the year before, Maine Mycological Association President Michaeline Mulvey wrote in the association’s latest newsletter.
They were uncommon in August and returned only briefly after September rains. Decomposers and parasitic mushrooms fruited, but not abundantly, after rainfall and where moisture was held under logs.
“It took miles of walking to see a few mushrooms,” she said, noting predictions about how conditions could change here.
In some past dry summers, tropical depression still came through and dropped several inches of rain over a few days, which Marley said can jumpstart a “pretty extraordinary” period for mushrooms, especially if it hasn’t been bone dry beforehand.
Remnants of hurricanes coming ashore in New England have led to “pretty special times” for mushroomers, he said. But that didn’t happen last year.
An El Nino weather system is expected to emerge this summer and last through the end of the year, which tends to produce more weather extremes than usual, according to Maine State Climatologist Sean Birkel’s latest update from the University of Maine Cooperative Extension.
It often means drier summer conditions in New England, according to WGME meteorologists.
During last year’s drought, Mishio didn’t find any spring oysters, and heard morels were hit or miss. Chanterelles were inconsistent, and she didn’t find lobster mushrooms. She did come across a lion’s mane, but it looked dry.
With warmer temperatures ahead this week, Mishio — who grows mushrooms indoors as a business, MMM’Shrooms — expects to see more and more mushrooms, and remains optimistic about the rest of the season.
“We’re waiting with bated breath,” she said.
Longer term, she expects more shifts to the seasons and harvests of Maine mushrooms as the climate changes — and forest composition with it.
Tree species used to colder temperatures, including some pines and spruces, are expected to be more vulnerable to climate change, according to the U.S. Forest Service.
Mishio is interested in seeing what species will arrive, or disappear, in coming years as trees that support them shift.
“Right now, foragers are really going to have to adapt, honestly,” she said.
