Glorious truffles

[liquid wolf]

Has any one got any info on the process of growing truffles or any culture? Apparently it takes 7 years to get a harvest of truffles and they are usually grown on oak but other trees are also viable. Has anyone grown any? I've checked out a few sites that deal with this but they seem to be pretty aloof.

[mescalito]

I'm sure they can be grown in symbiosis with a few other trees...

http://www.rirdc.gov.au/champions/Perigord...rdTruffles.html

http://www.ts.co.nz/~rick/nmf/articles/truffles.html

might help

[ 13. July 2004, 21:02: Message edited by: mescalito ]

[liquid wolf]

cheers for the info, but do ou know of anyone that has a live culture that would be willing to part with it? We are thinking about buying a property out of town that would sustain truffles and are hoping that they could bring in a little cash for us in the future!

[Rev]

There are many other things youd could grow that would be closer to your field of technical expertise

The black and white gold are the subject of a lot of interest but no-ones cracked it yet

so many variables - soil, climate, host , competors, predators etc etc...

and like most thing technical success doesnt often translate directly to $$$$$ success

If I was down south id be looking at wild harvesting Suillus and lactarius, and innoculating pines with Boletus edulis (Cep,Porcini) and the area with Morels and Lepista nuda

Much Better chances of success

I reckon leave truffles to those with too much time or money to burn! Not good odds in seeing your $ back - Ok for fun though

[waterdragon]

pretty sure i've got lepista nuda growing under a pine here. still finding the occasional milk cap too. one would think that the recent canberra bushfires would have provided a great opportunity for innoculation with morels.

[Rev]

Ive got a Morel culture ATM - FAST!!!!

2 days and its nearly reached the perimeter of the dish

They outgrow contaminants easily

Ive put ome on millet and ryegrass to make spawn then ill see what i can do with it

[mescalito]

Funny I was thinking about Canberra re this one.

Would the area need to be colonised before the fires or could you still innoculate now?

[Rev]

If i knew anymore than i know id be that one step closer to being a morel mogul

seriously i dont know

Im trying step 2 now

step 1 - get a culture from a wild morel and clean up (easy)

Step 2 - make spawn (easy enough)

Step 3 - make sclerotia (?)

Step 4 - (?)

Step 5 - Pick tonnes of Morels and enjoy my riches :D

Step 3 should be easy enough to do but to do well will be the bit requiring research.

Basically you take the nutrient rich spawn and create an interface with an unspecified nutrient poor casing mixture - and the response of the Morel is to form sclerotia, which are then used for step 4, which is directly preceeding step 5 which i can handle.

As for Truffles - heres a post by Semilanceata over at the shroomery

"There are succesfull truffle growers in my country (Spain). But it is outdoors not indoors. In fact, indoors is impossible right now cause truffles need trees to develope. They do it this way:

They put a couple of very clean mature truffles in clean water inside a jar that can be closed. Then the grower dissolves the truffles and let them sit for a couple of days. Afterwards they throw in some clean tree seeds (Quercus ilex) and let sit for another day, stiring the jar once in a while. Then they sow the seeds in a pot containing sterilized soil picked up from a truffle producing forest. Once the seeds germinate and the little plants are growing healthy, a first transplant takes place to a larger pot (soil: same as above). This is the time to cut off the main root to induce secondary roots development (where the truffles like to grow). After 2 years of growing the little trees in a greenhouse, these are transplanted outside in the definitive place making sure the mycorrizae did form (using a loupe or microscope). Then you cross your fingers and pray a little bit. In 6-10 years the trees begin to produce truffles.Quercus ilex truffle production lasts for over 40 years then the amount of truffles decreases. The comercial growers calculate a productive life of 15 years per tree with a 50 kg/10.000 m2/year harvest."

So in summary

you need :-

the right land

a bucket of Quercus ilex (Holly oak) seeds

some fresh truffles

6-10 years

Luck

[ 30. July 2004, 01:49: Message edited by: reville ]

[mescalito]

Can they be introduced to older established trees?

If only we could find some local aussie host trees for these things there seems to be a gret market plus if your pulling fruit or nuts of the trees....wait a minute are truffles and morels the same thing?

I have a bush food book here...what's choiromyces aboriginus? has it listed here as a native truffle,grows in lush green muddy areas but no mention of the host*shrug*

[Rev]

Older trees??

Its likely that other species will have filled the niche aready - this is particularly likely in Europe but not as likely here

If an Aust native plant could host Tuber sp. (Truffles) id be suprised. Australia does however have one of teh highest numbers of hypogeous fungi in the world - none i know are edible though

Truffles grow fairly well on Hazel nuts/Filberts (Corylus sp.) so if your truffle plans dont work out you still can still make praline

Morels and truffles arent the same thing, not even closely related. less apples and pears and more like Ferns and tomatoes.

[Hagakure]

they dip the roots of young trees into cultures.

there are some developments in tasmania at the moment but they will never tell you their secrets that they have invested a lot of time in finding out.

[mescalito]

Sorry my bad I saw the mention of morels above and..um anyway

It's interesting those little hazelnut pralines I used to hint at to dear old mum in the checkout lines while we were waiting for some rich-bitch to write a cheque for 2 loaves of bread at woolies were marketed with the name 'truffles'...coincidence?

:D

[smogs]

i saw a docco on abc a few months ago that had a truffle grower in tassie.. and some in NZ... apprently theres a few and some sort of community. Its big bucks too because being in the southern hemisphere its during the dormant time where they are mainly found (europe)

im pretty sure theres a truffle farm in NZ making a profit

you would have to check up on that tho

also its hard to import to start a farm because they come already bound to tree roots... and they get sprayed with fugicide on the way through quarentine

[waterdragon]

'small farms' magazine for this month contains a good two page article on the growing of truffles in bombala - southern nsw. they're using a configuration of two hazels for each oak, apparently dogs are still the preferred method of truffle detection. good article indeed.