The puzzle of the precious white truffle finally yields to science
They give off intense aromas of garlic and fermented cheese, and are so rare they can fetch up to £9,000 per kilogram. Now the puzzle that has baffled experts for more than half a century about how to grow the elusive white truffle on a commercial scale seems to have been solved.
This week, scientists from the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE), will reveal that, in a secret location in New Aquitaine, in the west from France, they cultivated 26 white truffles.
While more than 90% of the highly prized Périgord black truffles are cultivated, previous attempts to cultivate their rarer white cousins have failed. This bumper crop follows two productive years at the experimental plantation in which barely a handful were grown.
"This significant increase in production is very promising," said mycologist and project leader Dr Claude Murat, of INRAE and the University of Lorraine, Nancy. "This confirms that the truffle is well established.
"With black truffles, it's usual to have just a few truffles at first, then a rapid increase, and it seems that the white truffle behaves in the same way, which is good news for future cultivation. . They provide trees with additional water and minerals in exchange for carbon-based nutrients.
Scientists have developed a way to inoculate trees with truffles from the Périgord in the 1970s, leading to the establishment of thousands of plantations in France, Italy and later in Spain. The same technique failed with Italian white truffles (Tuber magnatum), despite planting more than 500,000 plants in Italy.
Some truffles were found in plantations 15-20 years after planting, but because they were in areas where T. magnatum occurs naturally, researchers believe they came from native fungi.
As of 1999, researchers from INRAE and the nursery Pépinières Robin, in France, genetically produced oak trees has confirmed its partnership with Italian white truffles. These were planted in a number of truffle orchards from 2008.
Tests on soil samples from five sites, all outside the part from the country where the species occurs naturally, showed that the fungus was present in four of them.
Three truffles were found in the orchard in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in 2019 and four were found in 2020. The 26 found in 2021 weighed around 900g in total. So far, 12 of the 52 oak trees planted in 2015 have produced truffles.
"This is the first time fruiting bodies of Tuber magnatum numbers are grown outside of its native range, so this is a very exciting development,” said Professor Paul Thomas, a Scotland-based mycologist whose company Mycorrhizal Systems is working with commercial partners to develop plantations of black truffles."Many previous attempts have failed, so we still need to know more about how they did it and how to reproduce it."
Murat and his INRAE mycologist colleague , Dr. Cyrille Bach, provided details of truffle growing conditions, in research to be published this week in Le Trufficulteur, the magazine of the French Federation of Trufficulteurs.
"We need to see the results of other experiments, but this opens up what could be an interesting opportunity for truffle growers to diversify into a new market," said Alain Ambialet, president of the French Federation of Truffle Growers.
The rise Temperatures and reduced water availability in Spain, Italy and southern France are, some say, opening up opportunities for truffle entrepreneurs further north, including in the UK. “With acres of limestone soil and less water stress, there is a...
They give off intense aromas of garlic and fermented cheese, and are so rare they can fetch up to £9,000 per kilogram. Now the puzzle that has baffled experts for more than half a century about how to grow the elusive white truffle on a commercial scale seems to have been solved.
This week, scientists from the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE), will reveal that, in a secret location in New Aquitaine, in the west from France, they cultivated 26 white truffles.
While more than 90% of the highly prized Périgord black truffles are cultivated, previous attempts to cultivate their rarer white cousins have failed. This bumper crop follows two productive years at the experimental plantation in which barely a handful were grown.
"This significant increase in production is very promising," said mycologist and project leader Dr Claude Murat, of INRAE and the University of Lorraine, Nancy. "This confirms that the truffle is well established.
"With black truffles, it's usual to have just a few truffles at first, then a rapid increase, and it seems that the white truffle behaves in the same way, which is good news for future cultivation. . They provide trees with additional water and minerals in exchange for carbon-based nutrients.
Scientists have developed a way to inoculate trees with truffles from the Périgord in the 1970s, leading to the establishment of thousands of plantations in France, Italy and later in Spain. The same technique failed with Italian white truffles (Tuber magnatum), despite planting more than 500,000 plants in Italy.
Some truffles were found in plantations 15-20 years after planting, but because they were in areas where T. magnatum occurs naturally, researchers believe they came from native fungi.
As of 1999, researchers from INRAE and the nursery Pépinières Robin, in France, genetically produced oak trees has confirmed its partnership with Italian white truffles. These were planted in a number of truffle orchards from 2008.
Tests on soil samples from five sites, all outside the part from the country where the species occurs naturally, showed that the fungus was present in four of them.
Three truffles were found in the orchard in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in 2019 and four were found in 2020. The 26 found in 2021 weighed around 900g in total. So far, 12 of the 52 oak trees planted in 2015 have produced truffles.
"This is the first time fruiting bodies of Tuber magnatum numbers are grown outside of its native range, so this is a very exciting development,” said Professor Paul Thomas, a Scotland-based mycologist whose company Mycorrhizal Systems is working with commercial partners to develop plantations of black truffles."Many previous attempts have failed, so we still need to know more about how they did it and how to reproduce it."
Murat and his INRAE mycologist colleague , Dr. Cyrille Bach, provided details of truffle growing conditions, in research to be published this week in Le Trufficulteur, the magazine of the French Federation of Trufficulteurs.
"We need to see the results of other experiments, but this opens up what could be an interesting opportunity for truffle growers to diversify into a new market," said Alain Ambialet, president of the French Federation of Truffle Growers.
The rise Temperatures and reduced water availability in Spain, Italy and southern France are, some say, opening up opportunities for truffle entrepreneurs further north, including in the UK. “With acres of limestone soil and less water stress, there is a...
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