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 wortiesbo
Registered: 03/18/06
Posts: 720
Loc: new vegas
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 Alien threat to truffle delicacy 
#8410414 - 05/16/08 04:57 PM (4 years, 12 days ago) |
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Alien threat to truffle delicacy
By Matt Walker
BBC
Truffle hunting (Getty Images)
The volume of truffles harvested has diminished greatly
One of the world's most prized culinary delicacies, the famous Perigord black truffle, could soon be off the menu.
Scientists fear it will be wiped out by an invading Chinese truffle they have discovered growing in European soils.
They tell the New Phytologist journal that the incomer is a particularly aggressive and fast-growing species.
The Perigord black truffle is one of the most highly regarded truffles, fetching around 600 to 800 euros per kg this season.
We dreaded it and it has happened
Claude Murat, University of Torino
"It is the most famous and appreciated among the black truffles, and is the most important truffle in French cuisine," says Claude Murat, a fungus expert based at the University of Torino, Italy.
Only Piedmont white truffles fetch higher prices.
Yet, its very existence is now threatened by the Chinese black truffle, a close relative that looks similar, but has almost no taste at all.
A team led by Murat has discovered this alien species growing on a plantation in Italy, meaning it is now growing in the wild in Europe.
"We dreaded it and it has happened," the scientists warn in their research paper. The concern is that the Chinese invader will out-compete its revered European relative.
Worse, it may even be able to interbreed with the Perigord black truffle, potentially replacing it altogether with a hybrid.
'Ecological rival'
True truffles are fungi that belong to the genus Tuber, and they live symbiotically with the roots of host trees. Perigord black and Piedmont white truffles not only have exquisite colour, taste and odour, but are considered to be powerful aphrodisiacs.
Truffles (Getty Images)
"Black gold": Truffles fetch high prices at market
Over the past century, harvests of the Perigord, scientifically known as Tuber melanosporum, have declined greatly, with annual sales falling from over 1,500 tonnes in 1870 to less than 100 tonnes today.
This has created a gap in the market, which since the mid-1990s has increasingly been filled by sales of the inferior Chinese black truffle, known as Tuber indicum.
European connoisseurs are concerned because while imports of the Chinese black truffle are sometimes legitimately labelled as T. indicum, often they are not, with Chinese truffles being illegally passed off as Perigords.
Now it seems that the two truffles will become ecological, as well as commercial, competitors.
"The owner of the Italian plantation contacted us in 2006," says Murat.
Genetic avenue
He had planted hazel and hornbeam tree seedlings that he thought were inoculated with the Perigord truffle fungus, "but after 10 years hadn't harvested a truffle".
A survey by Murat's team revealed both Perigord and Chinese truffles in the root tips of the plants, and also in the soil.
"It's the first evidence that T. indicum has been used to inoculate seedlings implanted in Europe, and that this species can spread in European ecosystems," he says.
The future of the Perigord black truffle was already in danger as a result of falling harvests. While the team cannot yet be sure that the Chinese black truffle will supplant the Perigord in the wild, "it certainly represents a future danger", says Murat.
Lab tests show it grows faster, has a higher genetic diversity and can respond better to different ecosystems and to climate change. And when a root is inoculated with both species, the Chinese black truffle is able to replace its rival.
In a bid to avoid that, Murat's team is now studying the genome of the Perigord black truffle.
"We hope this important project will allow us to preserve this delicious product," he says.
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monkeybus
Stranger
Registered: 07/29/07
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Re: Alien threat to truffle delicacy [Re: wortiesbo]
#8411589 - 05/16/08 11:34 PM (4 years, 12 days ago) |
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Truffle kerfuffle grips Italy as rival takes root
Tom Kington in Rome
Saturday May 17, 2008
The Guardian
Forever on the warpath against Chinese imitations of its designer clothes and sunglasses, Italy faces an oriental threat to one of its priciest culinary exports, the truffle.
Researchers in Turin were startled to find DNA traces of the Tuber indicum, a Chinese truffle, on tree roots in Italy - the first such discovery in Europe - and fear the Asian invader could muscle out its more delicate homegrown cousin.
"[The Chinese truffle] looks the same as the black Italian truffle, but has no taste or smell and grows faster and more aggressively than either the black or white Italian versions," said Paola Bonfante, a plant biologist at Turin University. "If the spores have spread it could usurp them."
Article continues
That could spell disaster not only for gastronomes but also truffle traders. A 1.5kg (3.3lb) white truffle dug up in woodland in Tuscany was auctioned in November for a record price of $330,000 (about £168,000).
"Thanks to our studies of the genome sequencing of black truffles, we are also checking to see if hybrids of the Chinese version and the Italian black truffle could one day be found in Italian woods," added Bonfante.
Researchers stumbled on the new arrival when a truffle cultivator near Turin asked for an analysis of some plants he had purchased with roots impregnated with Italian black truffle spores.
"He was having no luck producing truffles, and our tests found the DNA of the Chinese version," said Bonfante. "We have no idea who sold him the fungi, but he was conned."
Prolonged drought in many of the black truffle's prime growing regions in Europe and predictions about global warming have heightened fears about its future.
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Coaster
Baʿal
Registered: 05/22/06
Posts: 33,501
Loc: Deep in the Valley
Last seen: 7 months, 17 days
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Re: Alien threat to truffle delicacy [Re: monkeybus]
#8411784 - 05/17/08 01:23 AM (4 years, 12 days ago) |
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cant u just grow them
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Visionary Tools
I <3 Thomas Jefferson
Registered: 06/23/07
Posts: 5,445
Last seen: 2 hours, 11 minutes
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Re: Alien threat to truffle delicacy [Re: Coaster]
#8412374 - 05/17/08 09:20 AM (4 years, 11 days ago) |
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Good luck trying! Growing truffles is one of the most difficult challenges any mycologist could face. And not for trying. With prices of £3000 per kilo (even more now I suspect, that's based on news I heard eleven years ago) it's a lucrative business for anyone that can do it.
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