Truffles winter well in Juva garden

First crop expected in three years

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By Juhani Saarinen
     
     "The happiest man in Finland".
      Salem Shamekh, the head of the Juva Truffle Center, is enthusiastic. He has just had promising results from his truffle-growing experiment. Truffle fungi attached to the roots of oak trees are alive and doing well.
     This is a big relief to Shamekh, who has been promoting the idea of truffle cultivation in Finland for many years.
     All last winter he was anxious to know if he might have been too optimistic. The oak seedlings inoculaated with truffles nevertheless survived winter temperatures of less than -30 degrees Celsius.
     "With this result, I am sure that we will get Finnish truffles.
     
The truffle mycelium of his experimental plot is still nearly microscopic, and it will be a couple of years before a harvest is possible. Shamekh calculates that the first summer truffles might be dug up in three years' time.
     The Truffle Center has planted oak seedlings on 16 fields around South Savo. Virpi Haikarainen in Juva says that the 46 trees do not need much care.
     "If that were to become a profession, the sweat would not flow much after it is set up", she notes. Haikarinen and the other experimental gardeners follow the growth with great curiosity. If the species really could be cultivated in Finland, the prospects would be promising. The price of a kilo of summer truffles is in the hundreds of euros.
     Haikarainen walks in her field and shows the other seedlings. There are also a few linden trees and hazelnut bushes, with truffle fungi added to the root systems.
      Shamekh, a researcher at the Laboratory of Bioprocess Engineering of the Helsinki University of Technology, says that next he will try to inoculate the roots of a fir tree with truffle fungi.
     
With the help of the Truffle Center and other enterprises, a real Mecca of culinary delights is developing in the heart of Savo. In neighbouring Joroinen an entrepreneur in the fish business is starting up caviar production.
     Juva municipal mayor Heikki Laukkanen believes that the desire to experiment is part of the local tradition.
     The region was among the first to experiment with raising turkeys in the 1990s, organic farming came already in 1980, and so on.
     With the help of the Truffle Center, the municipality has attracted attention at home and abroad. Laukkanen is interested to see how truffle farming will develop.
     "This is pretty exotic, but on the other hand, you never know", he says.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 28.9.2007


Links:
  Juva Truffle Center
  Truffle Orchards Workshop, February 2008

JUHANI SAARINEN / Helsingin Sanomat
juhani.saarinen@hs.fi