The message
from Jaques d'Alltrades contains
these words:

Old wives' tale. All mushrooms emerge over a period and can take many
days to get to a noticeable size.


There is a patch of field mushrooms at my workplace. Each year I pick
them and each year I have to balance size against probability of maggot
infestation. You see, as Jacko Alltrades says, they take some days from
first appearing as dots to maturing into huge caps, meanwhile the flies
are busily laying their eggs all over them. The trick is to allow the
'shrooms to expand sufficiently to gain flavour (little flavour in
peedie ones) but not allow time for the fly eggs to develop into
burrowing maggots.

I suggest that the early morning picking idea is to take them when very
young before flies have a chance to damage them. Alas, if one does that
one inevitably sacrifices flavour and weight.

--
Cheers,
Compo

How do you know when your bagpipes need tuning?