Our latest media coverage has just been published in Luxury Lifestyle magazine. Written by Firgas Esack, the article covers cultivation and the best places in the world to eat truffles:

On a cold day in rural Leicestershire, Dr Paul Thomas was checking on one of his UK plantations, sites that he establishes in partnership with landowners and farmers “The wind was cold as I walked to the first tree to take my annual root samples”. Dr Thomas was in for a huge surprise, as when he pulled the grass aside, in front of him he found a large and very rare prize. “I was in complete shock! I jumped backwards, dropped my tools and ran back to the farmhouse. It felt like I had seen a ghost”.

During our 2015 Napa Truffle Festival, we ran a very successful fungi foray with mycologists David Campbell and Stephanie Jarvis. After recent rains the finds were incredibly varied with prized edibles including matsutake and elfin saddle-backs. The real star of the foray though, was a surprise find of a rare truffle species by Lolo and her expert handler Alana McGee. Around the base of a young Douglas fir a fruity-smelling truffle was unearthed.

The 5th annual festival is due to start in just over a week. Running from the 15th to the 19th of January, the festival is going to be one to remember. There will be a broad range of talks from the science of truffle cultivation and new advances to scent detection and economics. There are excursions that include Truffle hunting demos, a mushroom foray with expert David Campbell and a number of dinners at wineries with top chefs from around the world and of course our very own top truffle chef in America, Ken Frank. See here for more details: http://napatrufflefestival.com/

Our latest published paper, an analysis of the fruiting triggers of Tuber melanosporum cultivation incorporating data from six continents, is now up and ready to view and can copies can be requested for free. The paper is entitled: Tuber melanosporum spread within sub-optimal climatic zones is controlled by fruiting triggers and not mycorrhiza survival.

Across the UK (and further afield) there are plantations reaching fruiting age but a lack of dogs to hunt on them! If you have trained your dog to look for truffles and would like us to pass your details to farmers with mature sites, even if you just want ground to practice on, let us know and we’ll introduce you to plantation owners. We’d like to hear from anyone and everyone so we can build a database and help match plantation owners with trained dogs. Please spread the message far and wide.

One of our partners from America has recently written an incredible article about her experiences of becoming a truffle producer. It is a fantastic read, especially for anyone who is thinking of investing in a plantation. The article can be found here: http://www.carolinaalumnireview.com/carolinaalumnireview/20140708/?pg=24…

A newly published study in the journal Genome Biology by scientists from UCLA and colleagues in Italy, France and Taiwan reports on the truffle’s unique genetic makeup. “The fungi have a complex genome, with a preponderance of repetitive and mobile elements,” said Simone Ottonello of the laboratory of functional genomics and protein engineering at the Univ. of Parma in Italy. “The genome resembles the composition of the human genome, which also uses reversible methylation — and other mechanisms — to deal with repeated and mobile elements.”

On October 17th 2014, we are looking forward to a night celebrating truffles at Sheffield’s Inox Restaurant. The evening will include a journey through the fascinating world of truffles hosted by our own expert mycologist, Dr Paul Thomas. You will have the opportunity to taste a selection of truffles over drinks before a surprise three course menu is served. The head chef, Joe Berry, will create the menu for the evening using truffles to complement the finest seasonal ingredients.