Truffle: the first plantations of the mushroom were made in France

There are new possibilities to have truffles on the table, a "star" product for many restaurants around the world and beyond.

To date, in fact, the truffle is harvested exclusively in the wooded environment in Italy and in some other European countries, but the offer often fails to satisfy the high demand on a global level.

With the joint research between the French research center Inrae and the Robin nurseries, presented with the online meeting "Controlled production of a rare truffle", the problem of greater availability of the product seems to have found a partial way out with the realization in France of the first plantations for the cultivation of the prized white truffle, using seedlings previously mycorrhized with T. magnatum.

The first truffles were harvested in 2019, four and a half years after the mycorrhizal seedlings had been planted.

The whole study began in 2008 with the realization of the plates in France nine years later.

The research works - explains a note - also open the way in Italy to the development of truffle cultivation, but also - it is emphasized - in other parts of the world.

The scientific results of the work were published on February 16 in the journal Mycorrhiza.

It is remembered that the main result was the harvest, in the plantation of Nouvelle-Aquitaine, of three white prized truffles in 2019 and four prized white truffles in 2020. These are - it is explained - the first prized white truffles collected in a plantation located outside the natural geographic range of this species.