It was about four years ago, that plant pathologist Paul Thomas appeared before the panel and requested funding for a truffle farm. A truffle farm that would bring to bear the full weight of scientific knowledge and progress on the matter of growing the valuable and mysterious underground fruit bodies known as truffles. This coming year, after five years of effort, he and the rest of the truffle-loving world will see if it has worked.

It could be a storming year. He’s expecting his summer truffle trees to yield between 70kg and 230kg a hectare and sell for around €280 (£249) per kilo (the current price is €400 per kilo but this varies during the year). The more delicate black truffles have a lower yield but sell for four to five times that price. “People have been growing truffles in the UK for close to 40 years. What we have done is bring the technology up to date, making it more reliable,” says Thomas.

Good luck to you Dr. Thomas. Send me a truffle. See Dragons’ Den truffle grower hopes to unearth profit after five years’ cultivation by Richard Tyler.

A 250g truffle (David Monniaux/Wiki Commons)

The heck with it. I don’t get the title, but Not mushroom for error is a full-length article about Gary and Michele Akers who recently started a small mushroom growing operation in Australia.

It has involved a lot of hard work and a fair bit of trial and error but the pair have now established a market for high quality mushrooms up and down the coast. Their white mushrooms (including buttons, mediums, cups and flats) and Swiss brown mushrooms are supplied on a daily basis to restaurants from Nowra to Bermagui including Bannisters in Mollymook, Pier One in Batemans Bay and the River Café in Moruya.

They are also regulars at the Capital Region Farmers’ Markets and Southside Woden Markets in Canberra. Gary and Michele admit Shoalhaven Mushrooms is a very small operation, describing it as a “fish egg in the sea” compared to some other mushroom producers and probably the smallest in NSW, if not Australia.

I sent a message asking for some clarification as to the meaning of the title (no response yet). I hope it is some really cool Aussie slang.

Addendum (01/12/10): I asked a fourteen year-old, who explained it to me in about 5 seconds. Not.Mush.Room.For.Error. Get it? Duh!

Now the shuttered mushroom farm has been purchased by a buyer who hasn’t yet decided what to do with it. According to New uses mulled for mushroom farm, by Joan Barron:

The new owners of the former Wind River Mushroom Farm in Shoshoni hope to establish a revenue-generating industry that will create jobs. “We are definitely going to try to create something that will stay in business rather than going out of business,” said Kenneth Hostetter. But just what type of business, he didn’t specify.

“We’re going to try to make something that will go and will be a good thing for Fremont County and the state of Wyoming,” he said. “We’ve got some consultants hired to kind of guide us down that path.” Hostetter and his wife, Darlene, of Riverton, bought the facility at auction Oct. 15 for an undisclosed amount. Hostetter operates Earthworks Inc., a business that performs environmental cleanup in oil fields. The $8 million Wind River Mushroom Farm operation opened in late 2004 at Shoshoni as part of the Wyoming Department of Corrections’ prison industries program.

Better luck next time. Thinking about establishing a “revenue-generating industry” isn’t exactly  a business plan, but you have to start somewhere I guess. (Note to self: Don’t use inmates for jobs requiring fast, accurate work)