Home | Community | Message Board


This site includes paid links. Please support our sponsors.


Welcome to the Shroomery Message Board! You are experiencing a small sample of what the site has to offer. Please login or register to post messages and view our exclusive members-only content. You'll gain access to additional forums, file attachments, board customizations, encrypted private messages, and much more!

Shop: Left Coast Kratom Buy Kratom Extract   PhytoExtractum Buy Bali Kratom Powder   OlympusMyco.com Olympus Myco Bulk Substrate   Unfolding Nature Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order   North Spore North Spore Mushroom Grow Kits & Cultivation Supplies   Original Sensible Seeds Bulk Cannabis Seeds   Mushroom-Hut Substrate Bags   MagicBag.co All-In-One Bags That Don't Suck   Kraken Kratom Red Vein Kratom   Myyco.com Isolated Cubensis Liquid Culture For Sale

Jump to first unread post Pages: 1
InvisibleveggieM

Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 17,538
Secret sex life of truffles revealed
    #13415962 - 10/31/10 08:50 PM (13 years, 6 months ago)

Kinky ...

Secret sex life of truffles revealed
October 31, 2010 - telegraph.co.uk

The secret and complex sex lives of black truffles, the rare fungi which are prized by chefs the world over, have been revealed in new research that may now help to make the delicacy more affordable


Expensive delicacy black truffles

For thousands of years they have been prized by humans as an aphrodisiac, but it seems that black truffles may need a little help themselves when it comes to mating.

Black truffles, which grow underground on the roots of oak trees, have proved notoriously difficult to cultivate. For years the reason has been a mystery, as has the precise method by which the fungi spread.

Now researchers have solved the puzzle. They have found that truffles are either male or female, and they only reproduce sexually. This makes them distinct from other fungi which can self-fertilise and even reproduce asexually.

To make matters more difficult, they tend to become isolated in single-sex colonies growing many yards apart.

The findings go a long way towards explaining why black truffles, or Tuber melanosporum as it is known by scientists, are so rare and consequently so expensive.

In France and Italy, trufficulteurs enjoy varied success when they attempt to impregnate the roots of young oak trees with truffles.

Even Prince Phillip, who spend £5,000 on specially-impregnated trees in the hope of growing black truffles at Sandringham, has been frustrated by the results and earlier this month called in specialists to help.

The difficulty in growing Tuber melanosporum adds to the price, which can rise above £100 for a single specimen.

But Dr Francesco Paolocci, who led the latest research at the Plant Genetics Institute in Perugia, Italy, said his team's findings could help increase the annual crop of truffles and even bring down the price.

He said: "It was long assumed that the truffle was like other fungi, but we know now that it needs the help of a partner. It has members of two different sexualities, a bit like male and female.

"But we found that individual trees are only colonised by a single sex of the fungi. Even when we started with a mixed colony, it quickly became dominated by one sex or the other.

"To produce the truffles, you have to have the two different sexual strains meeting in some way, but they can be quite far away from each other.

"We think that in nature animals, such as dogs or pigs, or insects can carry the spores from one colony to another allowing mating to take place.

"To cultivate it successfully, there needs to be more attention paid to the sexuality of black truffles when planting them to ensure there is an unbiased mix in truffle fields."

Truffles grow underground in a mutually-advantageous relationship with the roots of trees. The fungus colonises the tree roots early in their life, supplying them with nutrients and minerals while obtaining food from the roots.

Black truffles, often called Périgord truffles after the region in France where they are most commonly found, are typically harvested in autumn or winter and can reach up to three inches in diameter and weigh up to three ounces.

The fruiting body of the fungus, which is the part that is so sought after by chefs around the world, occurs only on the maternal sex.

Truffle hunters use pigs, which have highly sensitive noses, or dogs to hunt out the pungent fungus from beneath the ground.

The concepts of male and female do not apply to fungi precisely, as their reproductive cycles can be highly complex.

Most species can reproduce asexually without the need for fertilisation and their genomes do not differ in the same way as higher animals do to distinguish males and females.

Fungi are instead characterised by mating type, which is determined by the production of a number of pheromones along with receptors that detect them.

Genetic testing has allowed scientists to begin to build up a picture of fungi mating types, and earlier this year Italian scientists sequenced the full genome of the black truffle.

That work revealed that black truffles are heterothallic, meaning that individuals can only be a single sex.

Subsequent work by Dr Paolocci and Dr Andrea Rubini, who is also based the Plant Genetics Institute, has now revealed fungus are also extremely fussy about mixing with the opposite sex and tend to form colonies of separate mating types.

Their findings, which are published in the scientific journal New Phytologist, also show that oak roots tend to be dominated by the maternal strain, while the paternal strain is found elsewhere in the soil.

Dr Paolocci added: "So far, when cultivating this fungus, people have overlooked the sexuality of the truffles. They take the roots of the trees that are colonised by the fungus and plant it around a truffle ground.

"But in order to have a productive truffle ground we need to have both the male and female strains.

"We have genetic markers that help us identify the male and female strains, and this can be used to increase production. It could help bring the price of these fungus down."

Black truffles, nicknamed 'black diamonds', were long thought in the Middle East to have medicinal qualities and the ancient Romans and Greeks also considered them to be an aphrodisiac.

According to the French Federation of Trufficulteurs only around 30% of trees that have been impregnated with truffle fungi will produce a crop.

Michel Courvoisier, director of the French Federation of Trufficulteurs, said: "We have no definitive answer about why. We hope that the recent discoveries, such as the mating type genes, will allow us to understand why sometimes the plantations are non-productive.

"Unfortunately, a better mastering of growing conditions will not quickly affect production – truffles are a slow emerging fungi."

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineScavengerType
Male User Gallery

Registered: 01/24/08
Posts: 5,784
Loc: The North
Last seen: 10 years, 6 months
Re: Secret sex life of truffles revealed [Re: veggie]
    #13416562 - 11/01/10 12:16 AM (13 years, 6 months ago)

OMFG I fucking knew it!

A couple of years ago I read some of the chapters from Paul Stamets "Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms" that talk about truffles and listening to the problems he described of the fungus, I said to myself, "That's odd, I wonder if they reproduce sexually and this is causing the problems people were describing." Or something like that. Did anyone else get this vibe after reading this (seeing as how GGMM is basically required reading here)?

Anyway the info in here is damn godly, thanks veg your the greatest.

I now know for sure that even if I am not rich I will be able to try a truffle in my lifetime. I'm stoked.

This must apply to white truffles too given that they have such similar problems.


--------------------
"Have you ever seen what happens when a grenade goes off in a school? Do you really know what you’re doing when you order shock and awe? Are you prepared to kneel beside a dying soldier and tell him why he went to Iraq, or why he went to any war?"
"The things that are done in the name of the shareholder are, to me, as terrifying as the things that are done—dare I say it—in the name of God. Montesquieu said, "There have never been so many civil wars as in the Kingdom of God." And I begin to feel that’s true. The shareholder is the excuse for everything."
- Author and former M6/M5 agent John le Carré on Democracy Now.
Conquer's Club

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineRabid Jelly Bean
Stranger
Male


Registered: 01/25/10
Posts: 411
Loc: TX Flag
Last seen: 11 years, 24 days
Re: Secret sex life of truffles revealed [Re: ScavengerType]
    #13416609 - 11/01/10 12:34 AM (13 years, 6 months ago)

I bet when they're affordable we'll learn they taste like shit and the rich people were just being typical rich people. Anything expensive is worth buying. :rolleyes:

I'll stick to shrooms. :grin:

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineScavengerType
Male User Gallery

Registered: 01/24/08
Posts: 5,784
Loc: The North
Last seen: 10 years, 6 months
Re: Secret sex life of truffles revealed [Re: Rabid Jelly Bean]
    #13416626 - 11/01/10 12:39 AM (13 years, 6 months ago)

Wouldn't that be ironic? If it turned out that their rarity was the only thing that made people want to eat them, like a status symbol or something? I can't wait till they are cheap enough to find out.


--------------------
"Have you ever seen what happens when a grenade goes off in a school? Do you really know what you’re doing when you order shock and awe? Are you prepared to kneel beside a dying soldier and tell him why he went to Iraq, or why he went to any war?"
"The things that are done in the name of the shareholder are, to me, as terrifying as the things that are done—dare I say it—in the name of God. Montesquieu said, "There have never been so many civil wars as in the Kingdom of God." And I begin to feel that’s true. The shareholder is the excuse for everything."
- Author and former M6/M5 agent John le Carré on Democracy Now.
Conquer's Club

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineTrowaBarton
Stranger
 User Gallery


Registered: 07/28/10
Posts: 348
Last seen: 4 years, 5 days
Re: Secret sex life of truffles revealed [Re: ScavengerType]
    #13416708 - 11/01/10 01:17 AM (13 years, 6 months ago)

Dude ive had trufles at a restaurant on my rice I believe, not like a whole truffle or anything but there were some shavings on there... it was an expensive meal but it was my B-Day... I mean it wasnt a place i could afford to eat at everynight but like a nice treat for myself... oh and i mean it was alright but not like OH MY GOD ILL PAY ASS TONS OF MONEY FOR THEM!!! more l;ike a rich people commodity if you ask me but hey I can say Ive tried one....

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleGerman Kahuna
Facepalmer of Stoopid
Male User Gallery


Registered: 10/31/08
Posts: 15,798
Loc: On a Chemical Vacation
Re: Secret sex life of truffles revealed [Re: TrowaBarton]
    #13416852 - 11/01/10 03:18 AM (13 years, 6 months ago)

A Hungarian friend of mine has trained his dog (a Magyar Viszla pure breed) to hunt truffles. Every year during main truffle season he goes down to Croatia for a week or two to hunt truffles. One time he came back and showed what must have been about a pound of truffles. We shaved them over everything, even scrambled eggs. After two days of trufflemania I conceded that they aren't able to live up to the hype that's being made about them. Definitely not worth the price. If I am to pay a lot of money for food it needs to be something substantial, like a Kobe steak, but not truffles or caviar.


--------------------
"Vegetarian" [ /ˌvedʒəˈteəriən/] - Ancient slang meaning "village idiot who can't hunt, fish or ride".

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Offlinecurenado
73rd Man
Male User Gallery


Registered: 04/01/03
Posts: 2,663
Loc: North Central Arkansas
Last seen: 1 hour, 31 minutes
Re: Secret sex life of truffles revealed [Re: German Kahuna]
    #13417159 - 11/01/10 07:45 AM (13 years, 6 months ago)

MG look at those honies!

No, GH, they def ae not worth the hype and price, you got that spot-on. Pretty much like any other mushie and some much better.

Once in a great while is the taste. Daily would take the novelty and yum out of it for me.

Caviar does suck - yet I have seen people eat it out of the can with a spoon. yewwww.

But the market of people who pay unbelievable bucks to feel privileged is still there and I say - take those idiots money and buy yo'self a real dinner! :lol:


--------------------
Yours in the Natural State Land of Enchantment!
"The woods are lovely, dark and deep; but I have patches to keep, and jars to sterilize before I sleep...."

"When psychotomimetics become cultural, so does cultural psychosis"

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Jump to top Pages: 1

Shop: Left Coast Kratom Buy Kratom Extract   PhytoExtractum Buy Bali Kratom Powder   OlympusMyco.com Olympus Myco Bulk Substrate   Unfolding Nature Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order   North Spore North Spore Mushroom Grow Kits & Cultivation Supplies   Original Sensible Seeds Bulk Cannabis Seeds   Mushroom-Hut Substrate Bags   MagicBag.co All-In-One Bags That Don't Suck   Kraken Kratom Red Vein Kratom   Myyco.com Isolated Cubensis Liquid Culture For Sale


Similar ThreadsPosterViewsRepliesLast post
* Truffle theft epidemic veggieM 1,973 0 03/29/05 01:55 AM
by veggie
* Pres. Bush admits to smoking pot in secret tapes veggieM 3,147 12 02/21/05 11:22 AM
by ivi
* Truffles: Coveted in France, Now in Tennessee veggieM 2,275 1 02/28/07 08:56 PM
by ComputerTekGuy
* 'Homosexual' fungus is able to reproduce veggieM 372 0 04/21/05 10:01 PM
by veggie
* Infectious fungus may just be having sex veggieM 450 0 07/14/05 01:14 AM
by veggie
* State Secret: Thousands Secretly Sterilized Adamist 653 5 05/16/05 11:44 PM
by Hooty
* Gay sex, meth and the Internet veggieM 4,496 7 01/18/07 12:55 PM
by GrimTroll
* Unearthing the Truffle veggieM 1,473 1 11/30/06 12:33 PM
by psilocybinocean

Extra information
You cannot start new topics / You cannot reply to topics
HTML is disabled / BBCode is enabled
Moderator: motaman, veggie, Alan Rockefeller, Mostly_Harmless
1,710 topic views. 0 members, 6 guests and 2 web crawlers are browsing this forum.
[ Show Images Only | Sort by Score | Print Topic ]
Search this thread:

Copyright 1997-2024 Mind Media. Some rights reserved.

Generated in 0.022 seconds spending 0.007 seconds on 14 queries.