Case study

Greek truffle trees

A truffle tree growing in scrubland in Greece.

Objective:

In the last 15 years, there has been a strong interest in truffles in Greece due to high market prices and the ability to cultivate them. In most truffle plantations in Greece, however, the seedlings come from European countries such as Italy, France and Spain, since there is no domestic production. Taking into consideration the issues of imported plant’s adaptability, biodiversity protection and the risk of introducing unwdesired truffle species, we attempted to create the first Greek truffle trees with Tuber aestivum and T. melanosporum in Greek forest species such as oaks, hazelnuts, etc., in the region of Epirus (NW Greece).

Start/end date:

Context:

In 2014 we started an effort to create Greek truffle trees. Local (and acclimated) plant species, standardized procedures and techniques and special materials were used at all stages of truffle tree production (oak collection and disinfection, sterilization/ pasteurization of materials), while trials with different tree species conducted. The effort was initiated and implemented by V. Mylonas and G. Lambrou (TroufaClub) with the decisive contribution of D. Kyrkas, G. Carras and G. Patakioutas (Department of Agronomy, University of Ioannina) to the procedure’s standardization and vaccination’s confirmation by genetic analysis techniques.

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