Home | Community | Message Board

Sporeworks
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: MagicBag.co All-In-One Bags That Don't Suck   North Spore North Spore Mushroom Grow Kits & Cultivation Supplies   Kraken Kratom Red Vein Kratom   Original Sensible Seeds Bulk Cannabis Seeds   Left Coast Kratom Buy Kratom Extract   Unfolding Nature Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order

Jump to first unread post Pages: 1
InvisibleveggieM

Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 17,504
Cultivating black gold
    #3791521 - 02/17/05 01:45 AM (19 years, 9 days ago)

Cultivating black gold
Paul Smaglik
16 February 2005
Nature

A PhD student studying plant biology at the University of Sheffield, UK, has combined his taste for mushrooms, his passion for scientific analysis and his growing interest in business to pitch a plan that has turned him into a funded entrepreneur. Paul Thomas, who is working on light signalling in plants, loves truffles, but they are expensive to buy, difficult to find and almost impossible to cultivate.

But he has used his research background to show in the lab that it could be possible to create the conditions under which truffles grow. The black fungus, whose scarcity makes it worth more by the gram than gold, only appears underground on select tree roots in specific soils and climate. Thomas believes that having a rigorous scientific understanding of these conditions means he could, theoretically, start up a truffle plantation.

But graduate students tend not to have the investment capital needed to snap up land in France or Italy. Nor do they have experience or training in starting small businesses. So Thomas entered a local business-plan competition - something that science graduate students and postdocs are increasingly doing. Winning the local competition gave him E2,500 (US$4,600) and the chance to compete for more cash in a BBC reality show called Dragons' Den, where would-be entrepreneurs make quick pitches to people who pledge venture capital to the winner (http://www.bbc.co.uk/dragonsden/episode4.shtml). Thomas was one of the winners there, too, giving up 25% of his company shares for a E75,000 investment.

But Thomas is not about to leave the bench just yet. Truffles take seven years to grow, if all goes right about the time he needs to become an independent investigator. If his black gold comes up, he may have to pick between the bench and the boardroom of his own company


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineLethalX5
Male

Registered: 01/07/05
Posts: 2,176
Last seen: 7 years, 6 months
Re: Cultivating black gold [Re: veggie]
    #3792876 - 02/17/05 10:40 AM (19 years, 9 days ago)

i thought truffles were chocolate?


--------------------
"To get what you've never had, You must do what you've never done."


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Offlinestefan
work in progress

Registered: 04/11/01
Posts: 8,932
Loc: The Netherlands
Last seen: 3 years, 4 months
Re: Cultivating black gold [Re: LethalX5]
    #3796949 - 02/18/05 02:10 AM (19 years, 8 days ago)

Quote:

LethalX5 said:
i thought truffles were chocolate?



yeah, can you now imagine why it's so damn difficult to cultivate them? :smirk:


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Invisiblegdman
badger, badger,badger...
Male User Gallery

Registered: 12/10/02
Posts: 16,286
Loc: Dancing In the Streets
Re: Cultivating black gold [Re: stefan]
    #3797633 - 02/18/05 08:59 AM (19 years, 8 days ago)

:grin:


--------------------


Got a question about a substance?  Erowid might already have your answer! Have questions about the  mushroom experience? The  Tripper's FAQ may have your answer or someone else might have had your question before.
         
I know up on the top you are seeing great sights, but down at the bottom we, too, should have rights.
  - Theodor Seuss Geisel Dr. Suess

"I didn't come here to be easily understood" - Steve


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

Shop: MagicBag.co All-In-One Bags That Don't Suck   North Spore North Spore Mushroom Grow Kits & Cultivation Supplies   Kraken Kratom Red Vein Kratom   Original Sensible Seeds Bulk Cannabis Seeds   Left Coast Kratom Buy Kratom Extract   Unfolding Nature Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order


Similar ThreadsPosterViewsRepliesLast post
* Ecuador violated by a big black pipeline Dreamer987 1,042 1 12/19/03 11:26 PM
by Dreamer987
* With pot and porn outstripping corn, America's black economy motamanM 2,349 2 05/02/03 06:53 PM
by Anonymous
* UC Berkeley students arrested in drug raid after UCB senior's mysterious death daba 7,588 13 11/09/04 05:00 PM
by Middleman
* French Truffle Fields Devastated veggieM 1,477 0 02/05/05 10:38 PM
by veggie
* First Truffle Museum No Trifle Lana 1,418 4 11/18/04 04:50 AM
by Frappy
* Police: UF student grew mushrooms motamanM 3,565 12 12/07/09 06:12 PM
by DragonChaser
* Truffle theft epidemic veggieM 1,972 0 03/29/05 01:55 AM
by veggie
* Mather Student Arrested on Drug Charges AnnoA 2,840 1 11/26/04 10:39 AM
by Anno

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
1,317 topic views. 0 members, 5 guests and 3 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 0.026 seconds spending 0.007 seconds on 14 queries.