- The truffle is all natural, but it is distinguished between spontaneous and cultivated.
In a poor year like this, truffle farming is revealing new business opportunities.
According to a truffle grower from the Marche region, Osvaldo Ferri, the protagonist of the video at the entrance to the Acqualagna Truffle Museum, it takes at least ten years to bring the precious trifole cultivation to full capacity.
"I was a metalworker, in the motorcycle engine sector - he says in a meeting promoted by Food Brand Marche - but I chose to work outdoors and on my own. I invested in the planting of rows of trees with mycorrhized roots, in the care of the land and in the training of my two dogs. Each plant costs on average a dozen euros, but it takes a suitable, suitable soil. My first plant is about 200 meters above sea level, but experience and climate changes suggest me to bring the activity to higher altitudes, and I plan to start a new plant at 600 meters above sea level.
For the rest, good legs are needed for the search, manual skills with a spade for quarrying, and complicity with dogs, true companions of adventure " .
In the Marche region truffles are harvested, according to the maturation of each variety, all year round. There are about 13 thousand miners registered in the register and a truffle of over 4 thousand hectares between those controlled (600 hectares) and those cultivated (3,500 hectares). A fiefdom with a strong truffle vocation thanks to research actions and PSR funds (rural development program) through the collaboration of the regional truffle growing center of Sant'Angelo in Vado and the local universities on the experimentation of silvicultural techniques for the productive improvement of truffle forests , the development on a large scale of the production of mycorrhized plants, the study on the vitality of the mycelium of truffles through biomolecular investigations.
The new project of the Marche truffle, commissioned by the Regional Agriculture Department and entrusted to Food Brand Marche, will deal with tourism development, creation of an integrated supply chain with a dedicated portal (marcheterraditartufi.com).
(HANDLE).
