Within truffle cultivation, some basic parameters are understood. For example, it is widely accepted that to cultivate Périgord black truffles (Tuber melanosporum) we need a suitable climate, alkaline soils and host trees whose roots have formed mycorrhizal structures with T. melanopsorum. Across the globe, these basic principles form the basis of truffle cultivation and an [...]
There are many technical considerations in trying to grow truffles. We’ve outlined the Five Steps to Growing Truffles before. However, by far the single biggest risk in growing truffles is not any of these technical considerations. It’s not the trees; it’s not the diseases; it’s not the soil. The single biggest risk is consistently the [...]
2020 has been a big news year and life has changed in ways that most of us never expected. At the start of the year, record wildfires seemed like they could be the big news story of the year as huge blazes ravaged Australia. However, as we all know, it wasn’t just Australia: the US [...]
As stated in a recent article featured in Wine & Food Magazine: 'A recent study suggests the European truffle industry could be done by 2071 or sooner.' This was based on a paper from Scotland’s University of Stirling entitled "A risk assessment of Europe's black truffle sector under predicted climate change" and published last month [...]
The monster 380g truffle worth around $900 American Truffle Company's chief scientist, Dr. Paul Thomas, recently reported that one of his Southern African truffle orchards has harvested its first truffles. The site, just 5.5 years old, uses a range of tree host species and the methodology employed by ATC. During the first hunt, a total [...]
Late one winter afternoon, in a field near Edinburgh, a scientist and a hunter are standing over a springer spaniel, watching it tear furiously at the base of a tree. Every few seconds, the dog ceases its digging, reaches down with its mouth and shakes a clod of earth as if it were a small mammal between its jaws. After a few minutes, the hunter, a retiree called Joyce, raises her hand and makes a circle gesture to the spaniel, Maxwell. “Snuffle,” she says. “Go snuffle the truffle.” And Maxwell takes off, whipping through the trees.
A recent article in the UK Financial Times Magazine follows the truffle exploits of Joyce and her dog Maxwell in their truffle orchard near Edinburgh with Dr. Paul Thomas: ...In the field with Joyce and Maxwell is Paul Thomas, a scientist who has made the study of this elusive fungus his life's work, and the [...]
From (left to right): Dr. Paul Thomas, truffle tree nursery In September of this year, American Truffle Company's Chief Scientist Dr. Paul Thomas published a paper on his ground-breaking research. Working with local farmers in the UK where he resides, he successfully cultivated black winter truffles as part of a program in Monmouthshire, [...]
Robert Chang, Chief Truffle Officer of American Truffle Co. Recently, Robert Chang was invited to speak at the annual Gary Lincoff Mushroom Foray. Here’s what the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette printed prior to the event: Perhaps you didn’t know an American Truffle Revolution exists. But it does, and Robert Chang will attest to it. He is the [...]
The 17th Annual Gary Lincoff Mushroom Foray, presented by the Western Pennsylvania Mushroom Club (WPMC), will be held on Saturday, September 16, featuring walks, presentations, an auction, book signings, a mushroom feast and lectures by guest speakers Gary Lincoff, past- president of the North American Mycological Association (NAMA) and author of the Audubon Society Field [...]
Climactic conditions at the study site provided by Met Office UK. In October, American Truffle Company's Dr. Paul Thomas and Robert Chang attended the 8th International Workshop on Edible Mycorrhizal Mushrooms (IWEMM) in Cahors, France, where Dr. Thomas presented a paper on his recent studies of the survival of the black summer/Burgundy truffle (Tuber aestivum [...]
The American Truffle Company has a new technique that it says can expand the range of the Perigord truffle in North America, but success is proving costly. By Jim Robbins The New York Times BUSINESS DAY NAPA, Calif. — Gig the truffle dog zigzags with her nose to the ground among hundreds of oak and [...]
