Cultivating Truffles

Title: Cultivating Truffles

Presenter: Dr Ian R. Hall. Truffles and Mushrooms (Consulting) Limited,Edible Forest Fungi New Zealand Limited

Time: Mar.3, 2011 Tuesday,10：00am

Venue: IMCAS C404#

Chair:Prof. Huaan Wen

Abstract: The edible mycorrhizal mushrooms include some of the world’s most expensive foods and have a world market measured in US$ billions. Despite this, few have been cultivated with any degree of success and certainly not in volumes that are likely to reverse the catastrophic declines in production that have occurred over the past 100 years. The main obstacles to their cultivation are their need to be associated with a host plant in order to successfully grow and fruit, contamination with other ectomycorrhizal fungi both before and after the establishment of plantations, and a general lack of understanding of each mushroom’s trophic relationships, and biotic, edaphic and climatic requirements. This talk will about the cultivation of the truffles, a small group of edible mycorrhizal mushrooms in the Ascomycetes, that have been cultivated. It will cover the degrees of success that have been achieved, yields and the problems facing growers.