Are you still inoculating or purchasing truffle trees inoculated by spore suspensions? Clonal inoculation may benefit growers and nurseries by enabling strategic inoculation and planting of trees with known truffle mating type. Truffle-Typing™ allows us to identify the mating type of truffle cultures and selectively inoculate trees with known mating type. The trees can then be planted in orientations to maximize the interaction between maternal and paternal strains and optimize truffle production. The old way of inoculating trees with spore suspensions leads to random colonization of the root system and eventual domination by a single mating type, and can result in orchards with asymmetric distributions of mating types across the landscape. Further, spore inoculation can inadvertently introduce truffle pests, contmainants, or incorrect truffle types to the orchard. Clonal inoculum also allows for selective breeding of superior strains of truffle, with purposeful introduction of stains that have enhanced colonization ability or strains with desired organoleptic properties. Research has shown that vegetative mycelium, which is characteristic of clonal inoculum, colonizes the root system faster than spore inoculum.
