What are truffles ?
| The mychoriza, whitnessing the symbiosis between the tree and the truffle |
||
 |
Truffles are classified as ascomyces hypogeum. A truffles is the result of a mycelium. A combination of several factors will allow a truffle to grow, due to a symbiosis between the tree and the truffle. |
|
| A truffle tree is indeed mychorized: on his roots can be found organisms (mychoriza)which allow the preservation and development of the mycelium which will give birth to a truffle. The latter rapidly becoms autonomous and independant from the hosting tree. | ||
| Tuber melanosporum forms between May and June. From August to September, it enters a phase of rapid growth and reaches its final weight and size, usually between 25 and 80 gr and frequently reaching 250gr in our truffle fields where the soil is very airy. Truffles are picked between December and March, after a maturing phase during which they acquire their delicate flavours. |
 La truffe de marque |
|
| A lengthy biological cycle |
||
| A truffle's biological cycle is long compared with that of an ordinary mushroom. Many incidents are feared before the picking. Long periods of drought as well as early freezing temperatures can destroy a year's production. Truffles are not buried very deep, between 5 and 25cm below the ground. Form time to time truffles can even be seen at the surface of the ground: they are then called "truffes de marque". they appear towards the end of September, since they lift the soil covering them. |
 |
|
| In theory, a truffle is of spherical form, but the stones in the soil in which it grows leads it to develop irregular shapes. Its outer membrane (peridium) is black and coarsed, with a prism shapped pattern. Its flesh is black (grey in the cas of truffles picked in November), and white veins run through it. The white veins do no cary any spores. | ||