Just finished to read this great new book about truffles, wrote by our friend:
François Le Tacon: Les truffes – Biologie, écologie et domestication
It must be difficult to try to compile 40 years of research on truffles, but he found a way to make a rigorous text while easy to read at the same time. He combines some of the latests papers published i.e. about how truffle feeds with the fundamentals and basic functioning of the mycorrhiza.
I enjoyed as en example, the “principle of the hydraulic elevator” that explains how transport of nocturnal water from the deep layers of the ground to the most superficial takes place thanks to the roots maintaining a good hydric state of the fungal structures.
It is completely updated on the sexual reproduction of the truffle, plus there is a chapter on the different stages of development of the fruit body with lovely microscope pictures of each one.
Half of the book is about truffle farming and devotes several pages to irrigation and control the water status of truffle plantations. A chapter about growing burgundy and sumer truffle, with figures about real yields per hectare from several plantations.
By now it is just edited in french, but probably there will be an english edition soon.
Congrats François! I learnt a lot!
Marcos S. Morcillo
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