Location, location, location. The timeless advice on buying property can also be linked to truffle cultivation. Here at Mycorrhizal Systems we believe seed provenance to be really quite important. Many of our new plantations are started with a proportion of the planting stock grown from locally sourced seed. An example of this is our plantings in Baltic countries. The majority of the plantations are still planted with seed that we have tried-and-tested and proven to be an excellent host, but the percentage produced with attention to provenance is important for a number of reasons.

Several wild borchii truffles were found in Finland only recently after a scientific survey. The small quantity previously reported may not be indicative of the country’s wild-harvest potential as a recent article in the Helsingin Sanomat (international edition) proves. With the increase of truffle interest in the Finnish media, truffle awareness has grown and so too have truffle finds.

The prestige and price is a constant carrot to encourage many would-be truffle hunters and we’re often sent pictures of finds from around the world. Very rarely do these turn out to be actual edible
truffles, so it is always wise to get your haul identified. Truffles are generally quite a distinctive group of fungi, but the promise of something very special can lead people to convince themselves that what they’ve found is actually more truffle-like than it really is. The number one fungi mistaken for truffles are earth balls ( Scleroderma

This month has seen the start of our new research project with Kew Gardens. Kew Gardens is an internationally important botanical research and
education institution with around 700 staff and the world’s largest collection of living plants. Kew’s

Australia’s having a good season with around 1.5tonnes of truffles tipped to be harvested in 2009. However, not all is rosy down-under with many sites underperforming and frustration among some farmers. This is not surprising as we’ve always maintained that you really do need real-research driven expertise on board to ensure the success of your truffle orchard.

For those of you planning on planting truffle trees on a commercial scale this autumn/winter, now is a good time to work out your liming and ground preparation plan.  This first stage is to have your soil fully tested and for those of you interested in our partnership programme, this is a completely free service we offer. We’ll check your soil conditions and work out exactly what needs to be done. If, for example, your field does need liming, we’ll also work with your local liming contractors to make sure that the right grade is used and applied in the correct manner.

Here at Mycorrhizal Systems, we love trees. No really, we do… without trees, where would we collect all the truffles?

The end of June saw perhaps the most important fixture on the summer festival calendar in the form of The Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts, commonly abbreviated to Glastonbury or Glasto. Glastonbury is the largest greenfield music and performing arts festival in the world with over 130,000 tickets sold for this years event. As part of the festival, there is a large area called the ‘Green Fields’. The Green Fields are about change and discovery - learning how to release your own potential, and discovering how to change the world.

The mole and the truffle story in this months newsletter would make a
lovely article for a newspaper, magazine or "...and finally" spot, so
anyone wanting further information on any items in our newsletter or
truffles generally, please do get in contact. Truffles have always been
a media friendly subject and throughout the lifetime of Mycorrhizal
Systems we've appeared in, and been featured on, numerous TV shows
(from the Dragons Den, The One Show and What to Eat Now on the BBC to Market Kitchen, Taste and CNN

Throughout the United States and Canada, the American Truffle Company (ATC- our operation in North America) has been planting orchards in partnership. Thousands of oak and filbert seedlings have just been planted in our newest orchard in North Carolina, complete with a fantastic professionally-installed irrigation system. The scientific methodology, close care and diligence that went into growing and planting the seedlings is paying off – all are doing very well in their new environment.