Looking Underground for a New Cash Crop: Truffles

The Perigord truffle has a long, rarefied history. The ancient Romans considered it an aphrodisiac. Gourmands through the ages have swooned over its flavor-enhancing powers. Hoity-toity restaurants and gourmet shops wouldn’t be caught dead without the pricey fungus.

Now, another chapter in the long history of the “Black Diamond” may soon be written: alternative crop for tobacco farmers.

“I think it’s an extremely viable alternative,” said Franklin Garland, 46, who operates Garland Gourmet Mushrooms & Truffles out of his Hillsborough farmhouse.

Others aren’t so sure, but state agricultural experts are considering adding truffles to the list of possible alternative crops for tobacco farmers.

“All this is part of a diversified farm effort, rather than ‘X’ crop to replace tobacco,” said Ron Fish, a horticulture marketing specialist for the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. “If we can grow them locally, we’ll have an advantage over French truffles, simply from a freshness standpoint.”

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The Perigord truffle is prized for its rarity and ability to enhance other foods. Difficult to find in the wild where it grows on the roots of hazelnut and oak trees, it sells for more than $300 a pound wholesale.

Garland and his wife, Betty, are using an $18,000 federal grant to study a new way of growing truffle-producing trees.

“If somebody could develop procedures to reproducibly grow them and develop a sustainable crop, the price would come down,” said Charles Cleland, director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Small Business Innovation Research program. “Some of us folks would find out what a truffle actually tastes like.”

Garland became interested in truffles about 20 years ago after reading about French attempts to cultivate them. He planted 500 hazelnut trees but didn’t find his first truffle until 12 years later, when he stumbled upon it while hosting the Triangle Mushroom Club and some Duke University mycology students.

“There was a frenzy out there,” he said. “By then, I had about given up.”

Now, he and his wife harvest about 50 pounds of truffles each year with the help of their truffle-sniffing dog, Chewy. Most are sold to local restaurants and gourmet shops. Based on actual growing area, Garland estimates his yield at about $14,000 an acre--anywhere from two to seven times better than tobacco.

Garland sometimes saves his best truffles for himself, freezing those he can’t use in their monthlong shelf life. Even encrusted with ice crystals, his truffles emanate a sweet, earthy aroma.

“They’re very aromatic to the nose and [have a] full taste, throughout the whole palate,” said Walter Royal, executive chef at the Angus Barn in Raleigh.

Royal buys about five pounds of truffles each year from Garland. They go into risotto, potato cakes with Russian caviar and stuffed chicken.

“Everybody who comes in and tries them finds it hard to believe that they’re from right here, just down the road,” he said.

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While still cultivating truffles, the Garlands now focus on selling truffle-producing trees. They’ve sold 8,500 this year at $12 to $15 each.

Edmond Badham of Morrisville, an investor with a doctorate in botany, bought about 90 but doesn’t recommend that tobacco growers sell the farm just yet.

“I wouldn’t mortgage the house to go into the business, but I think it’s got a lot of potential,” Badham said.

But Rosario Safina, who works for the largest truffle producer in the world, said small-time farmers needn’t bother. Safina is president of Urbani Truffles USA, a unit of Urbani SNC of Scheggiano, Italy.

“You either plant a lot in the beginning, or you don’t,” he said in a telephone interview from New York.

Urbani is decidedly thinking big--it is involved in an effort to develop what could become the world’s largest truffle orchard in Hext, Texas.

With French technology and spore-producing truffles from Urbani and two other firms, Roy Carver III has planted more than 50,000 hazelnut trees on a sprawling eastern Texas plantation.

“It’s designed to be a full-scale, commercially operating truffle orchard,” said Carver, head of T-Bar Ranch.

Carver said European truffle production has dropped from about 1,000 tons annually 100 years ago to 10 to 60 tons a year today. Meanwhile, Americans have broadened their culinary tastes, and the truffle has become more popular.

‘While it’s a little ‘boutiquey,’ there certainly is a broader market today,” he said.

Carver hopes to reach commercial production in about two years. He plans to use Urbani’s distribution network to ship fresh truffles directly to restaurants and gourmet shops nationwide, export some to Europe and process the rest into soups and sauces.

Safina said the orchard eventually could produce up to five tons of truffles a year.

“It’s an opportunity to start a new industry, really,” he said.