Utilization of Finnish wild white truffles in symbiosis with Norway spruce

Truffle cultivation is a nontraditional and sustainable agro-industry which has high economic benefit for rural economiy. Truffle cultivation nowadays is considered worldwide as a new and a good source for income for landowners and as a new tourism product. In Finland, the truffle cultivation and utilization have started at Juva Truffle Center (http://www.juvatruf.fi/cms/index.php?page=home). Goals of the center are to develop a method to cultivate truffles in the region and in whole Finland for practical and commercial purposes as well as transfer know-how on truffle orchards to landowners and other members of the business chain.

Luke has utilized and developed laboratory based vegetative propagation method, somatic embryogenesis (SE), for production of Norway spruce elite plants for forest regeneration. In this project SE plants are inoculated with white truffle in order to study the benefits of inoculations for plants growth and to find the best genotypes for truffle production.

The basic idea of the project is to improve the utilization of the naturally existing Finnish wild truffle species, in order to create a successful organic production chain for this fungus. This will promote the sustainability and resource efficiency at the forests and with the effective raw material resource production to support the Finnish forest and food industry to use this novel product.