The Secret of Truffles

January 25th.

Perhaps because the New Year was approaching, the weather, which had been gloomy and rainy for the past few days, was finally blessed with a warm sun today.

Jiang Miao gathered all the employees from out of town who were returning home and took out a large stack of red envelopes.

"Here! Keep up the good work!"

He handed over a red envelope containing 888 yuan.

Zhang Xinyi quickly took it with both hands. "Thank you, Boss! Happy New Year, Boss!"

"Happy New Year!"

Soon, more than twenty employees from out of town received their New Year red envelopes of 888 yuan. Then, pulling their suitcases, they took the company's five pickup trucks to the high-speed rail station or the bus station.

Lin Shuya, standing nearby and looking at the much quieter company, exhaled a puff of air and rubbed her slightly red hands. She smiled and asked, "You'll be staying at the company these few days, right?"

"Yes, the company must have management personnel on duty."

"I don't have much going on. The work of collecting samples from Southern Yunnan takes time. We've currently obtained about 5 kilograms of truffle samples. Termitomyces won't be available until July or August, and Matsutake will also be in July or August."

Jiang Miao squatted down and petted Da Huang, whom he had brought from his hometown. This was the guy who had found him after he was struck by lightning. He rubbed its head and fed it a piece of eel meat.

"How is the truffle research coming along?"

Lin Shuya explained the situation to him. "Currently, many places are researching the cultivation techniques for black truffles and white truffles. Among them, the Pan City Agricultural and Forestry Research Institute completed the cultivation technology for a semi-wild environment in 2023."

"The yield per mu must be quite awkward!"

"That's right," Lin Shuya replied while squatting down to watch Da Huang eat the eel meat.

The reason Jiang Miao guessed that the yield per mu for white truffles was awkward was because the market price reflected the true production situation.

If the Pan City Agricultural and Forestry Research Institute could achieve large-scale mass production of white truffles, the market price of white truffles would definitely fall.

However, Jiang Miao knew from the procurement department's reports that the price of white truffles had remained at around 400 to 1000 yuan per kilogram in recent years, averaging around 580 yuan per kilogram.

Since the market price had not plummeted, it indicated that the technology of the Pan City Agricultural and Forestry Research Institute could not achieve large-scale mass production and could only cultivate in a small-scale semi-wild environment.

"Da Huang, let's go!" Jiang Miao pulled the leash.

On the country road leading to South Lake Farm.

The morning sun was bright. Although the north wind was still unwilling to take a break, the sunlight brought a hint of warmth to pedestrians.

The two of them walked Da Huang, strolling towards the temporary edible mushroom laboratory at South Lake Farm.

Twenty minutes later.

At the foot of the hillside on the north side of the farm was the temporary laboratory built from container houses.

Jiang Miao, who had changed into a protective suit, saw the bagged substrate made by Lin Shuya using sawdust, soil, quicklime, and gypsum. There were over a hundred bags in total.

These bags used different ratios, with 10 bags per group, making a total of 14 control groups.

Through the identification panel, Jiang Miao saw the condition of the white truffles inside these bags.

Three of the groups were growing relatively well. Jiang Miao glanced at the labels, and a look of as expected appeared in his eyes.

This is because the bag materials for these three groups consist of one group using forest soil from the Pan City White Truffle production area, and two groups using artificial soil formulated to mimic the composition of the Pan City forest soil.

As expected, trace elements in the soil have a significant impact on the growth of white truffles, with phosphorus, magnesium, manganese, and selenium being crucial.

Moreover, it's not simply a matter of supplementing these elements, as white truffles have different absorption and utilization rates for the compounds of these elements.

For example, white truffles can effectively utilize occluded phosphorus from phosphates in the soil, and require a suitable soil pH. They do not utilize other phosphates.

Therefore, it is very difficult to provide nutrients to white truffles through chemical fertilizers, as they do not like artificial fertilizers. To be precise, they lack the corresponding genes to absorb artificial fertilizers.

This is similar to lactose intolerance in humans; white truffles cannot absorb and utilize just any compound of trace elements.

In addition, they require corresponding temperature, humidity, and organic matter. These all need specific conditions to ensure rapid growth of white truffles.

Jiang Miao, wearing gloves, picked up one of the bag packages: "Shuya, look at this bag, are there already some mycelia?"

"Let me see."

Lin Shuya quickly took out a magnifying glass and carefully observed these bag packages. Jiang Miao helped her record the corresponding data.

"Huh, it really is?"

After observing all one hundred and forty bag packages, Lin Shuya looked at the data Jiang Miao had compiled and murmured to herself: "The soil brought back from Pan City indeed has an effect on white truffles, and the two groups of artificial soil mimicking Pan City soil also have an effect."

Jiang Miao smiled and reminded her: "You can set up some more control groups, for example, try using chemical fertilizers, natural minerals, and artificially increasing the content of some trace elements in the cultivated nutrient soil to see if there are differences."

"What you said makes some sense. Perhaps white truffles need some natural mineral nutrients that are not artificially synthesized, similar to the artificial breeding technology for eels that you developed." Lin Shuya had clearly understood.

Jiang Miao continued: "Also, those few acres of greenhouses should be upgraded and renovated after the New Year to achieve controllable internal temperature, humidity, and light intensity. Only then can we test the various conditions, and even some dynamic conditions, required for the growth of white truffles."

"Then there's the soil pH. After all, among the 50 soil samples collected from Pan City, the soil where white truffles like to grow is alkaline calcareous soil, with a pH between 8.1 and 8.2. This is clearly also an important influencing factor. Many chemical fertilizers now change the soil pH, and I suspect that chemical fertilizers will have a counterproductive effect on cultivating white truffles."

Lin Shuya recorded his ideas.

"Furthermore, the types of organic matter in the soil brought back are also a direction worth studying. After all, as a symbiotic fungus, since it needs to attach to the roots of specific trees to grow, this indicates that these trees provide some specific nutrients to white truffles."

Lin Shuya nodded in agreement: "Indeed, it seems I need to expand the scale of the experiment and increase the control groups to observe all the conditions required for white truffle growth."

After all, to achieve large-scale production of white truffles, their growth cycle must be shortened, while ensuring sufficient accumulation of flavor components.

Therefore, only by thoroughly understanding all the growth conditions of white truffles can targeted measures be taken to shorten the growth time without losing flavor.

Currently, the growth cycle of white truffles in the natural environment is as long as 7-8 years, which is clearly too long and does not meet the requirements for commercial production.

This is also one of the reasons why the semi-wild cultivation technology of the Pan City Agricultural and Forestry Research Institute is difficult to promote.

Their technology can only achieve a yield of 40-60 kilograms of white truffles per mu, which can be sold for about 24,000 to 36,000 yuan at the current market price.

However, the planting cycle takes seven or eight years, and in the harvest year, they can only be harvested for a few years. After a few years, replanting is required, or natural forest closure and cultivation are needed to ensure that the organic matter in the soil can recover.

Clearly, this time cost is too high, and it carries huge risks. No farmer is willing to gamble with seven or eight years of time.

Just like in recent years, many small mushroom companies have been misleading farmers into planting morel mushrooms.

Can this thing be planted?

Yes, it can.

The prerequisite is technical support from provincial agricultural and forestry institutions, plus good luck. Otherwise, blindly planting morel mushrooms is highly likely to result in a complete loss.

Because morels are very picky about temperature and humidity, and the temperature and humidity they require are conflicting, ordinary greenhouses without temperature and humidity control systems can only rely on the weather.

If you're lucky, you'll have a harvest in the first year.

If you're unlucky, it's common to have no harvest for several consecutive years.

The reason Jiang Miao didn't have Lin Shuya research morels is that the technology for large-scale cultivation of morels already exists. It involves using greenhouses with full temperature and humidity control, along with proper soil disinfection, which can ensure continuous harvests.

The problem is that the cost of doing this is very high, and the price of morels is not too high. This leads to the value of the output being unable to cover the production costs, causing investors to lose money.