Black Gold in them there hills.

I actually went off after reading the hazelnut tree thing, and read up on this venture
http://www.rirdc.gov.au/champions/PerigordTruffles.html

and was surprised to find that they use oaks AND hazelnuts, and that makes sense as hazelnut trees grow a bloody sight faster than oaks. But apparenlty they imported the spores, and infected the trees. In my addled memory, oaks is where truffles were first found naturally (and they use pigs to find them, while here we use dogs).

Well, more power to them, I really hope it succeeds. Brave venture, lots of pitfalls.

thought it was hazel trees..? dried shitake are almost as good – and fifty nine times cheaper! (but truffles are very very yummy if you ever feel indulgent)

Interesting. I’d assume that in order to grow truffles, they’d need to plant the right sort of Oaks, and ensure their roots were “infected” with the spoors of the truffles? Oaks are very slow growing though.