The truffle research of Omoanghe Isikhuemhen, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Design, is featured in Smithsonian Magazine.
The article in the June edition – “Has the American-grown truffle finally broken through?” – describes how truffle production has never become big business in the U.S. Until now, perhaps.
Isikhuemhen, known as “Dr. Omon,” has developed a method to propagate truffles, which grow on the roots of trees. Omon and his partners, Mycorrhiza Biotech and Burwell Farms, have had tremendous success on a 2-acre plot at Burwell Farms.
“There are an estimated 200 pounds of truffles in this plot,” the article states, “making it one of the most productive truffle orchards the world has ever seen.”
The other innovators in the partnership are Nancy Rosborough, CEO of Mycorrhiza Biotech, and Richard Franks, chief scientific officer at Burwell Farms. Together, they’re growing Tuber borchii, the bianchetto truffle, which sells for about $500 per pound. The article credits the trio with work that could launch an American truffle production boom.
Omon developed his own growth media, which is used to inoculate pine seedlings with truffle spores before they are planted in an orchard. “It’s a secret mix that grows truffles five times faster than any other media,” he said in the article. “Its composition is very abnormal. Very. It came to me in a dream.”
Burwell Farms is doubling down on its original bet. It has now planted five 2-acre orchards and hopes to harvest more than a thousand pounds of truffles annually in a few years.
Rosborough, meanwhile, is excited about the potential benefits that truffle production could provide for small farmers.
“We were never doing this just to make money,” she said in the story. “The goal has always been to get this technology into the hands of small farmers. If, in a few years, there are 50 farmers in each of the Southeastern states growing truffles on small plots and using that money to hold onto their land, then we can say it worked.”
The mushroom research described in the article was supported by a grant from USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, grant # NC.X328-5-20-130-1.
