Iam also planing to try and cultivate truffles. There has been moderate succes with this here in hungary but since its a long term investment not a lot of people are willing to take the risk. So enjoy the thread, feel free to ask, and make suggestions!
Ladies and Gents allow me to introduce Bodza my new, in the future to be, truffle dog. She is a "magyar vizsla" (hungarian vizsla) a completly hungarian variety which was bred from ancient roman hunting dogs that were here in hungary when the Huns conquered the region, and a turkish hunting dog which was brought into the region during the turkish occupation. It is a pure hunting dog with one of the best noses among dogs.
So Bodza i got the day before yesterday she is a bitch and only 6 and a half weeks old not really any words to descibe how cute she is. Hence the pictures which i took today.
I have been digging myselfe deeper and deeper into the world of truffles and i was quite surprised to find out that Hungary and the neighbouring regions are one of the best summer truffle (Tuber aestivum) regions in the world. And not only can one find T. aestivum but a number of other species like T. brumale, T. mesentericum, T. magnatum, T. mesentericum, Choiromyces Meandriformis and Terfezia terfezeoides.
Depeanding on the truffle dogs skills all of these can be found succesfully in certain regions, together with a lot of inedible truffle species.
My intenshions with the dog are simple. Its going to be trained to do everything a regular dog has to do with retreiving being a top priority. A good retriever or apporter dog in other words has the best chances of becoming a truffle dog.
According to most of the sources ive found its best to start the "truffle training" when the dog is about 5-6 months old. So with some luck we should be able to parttake in next years season.
The truffle training itselfe will only begin in the spring time, march, april perhaps. It is however important to introduce the smell of truffles at an early age. This can be done by either giving the dog a truffle to play with or by "lacing" its favorite toy with truffle-butter. This iam planing on doing tomorow, ill document the procedure and post it offcourse.
I would like to document and log the entire process of training the dog. Also, slowly but surely I will describe the listed species, their features, values, and growing habitats together with any important info. i come across.
Hopefully in one year from now I can post the first truffles we found together.
For now here is a brief description of truffles. The name truffle derives form the latin term tuber meaning lump. Truffles are underground fungi in the Ascomycota division, pezizomycetes class, the order of Pezizales and the tuberaceae family. The truffle belongs into the genus tuber.While the rest of the hypogeus fungi fall into the Basidiomycetes, Zygomycetes,Ascomycetes and Glomeromycetes genus.
Truffles are ectomycorrhizal species which have associations with plants, mainly hardwoods. They also rely on mycophagy for spore dispersal.
Truffles prefer a calcareous soil except for T. brumale which can be found on more acidic ground too. Here in hungary the most important symbiotic partners are oak, beech, hazel, pine and poplar. There are also a number of indicator species among the undergrowth and bushes, which can help in finding suitable habitats ( this i will detail later on).
The truffle season is long almost all year actually. With the summer and white truffles producing fruitbodies as early as june-july and the winter truffle producing fruitbodies untill march, if the weather doesnt get too cold ofcourse. Rain and winter snow play a keyrole in the amount of truffles that grow, nothing new as most fungi share this requirement. Truffles however require an even dispersal of rain inorder to form properly and in abundance. This is one of the most serious problems here as Hungarys climate is predicted to get a lot drier in the next few decades. This problem can perhaps be solved with the widespread use of cultivation. There are huge areas which are suitable for this. Iam also planing on trying once i move out into the country.
This is it for now, enjoy the cuteness of the following pictures.
