Alberto Ferreras
Villaralbo (Zamora) (EFE).- It took more than ten years for the public initiative of mycorrhization with black truffles from trees planted in different plots of the province of Zamora to begin to bear fruit, but the wait can be considered worthwhile. It’s worth it if you take into account that this gourmet product has been paid for at a thousand euros per kilo this campaign.
Although production is still incipient as it is in its early years and this campaign has been further reduced due to the dryness and excessive heat of last summer, the first accounts are beginning to appear in the Zamora provincial nursery located in Villaralbo, where the bitch Kayra strives to sniff out a farm of seven and a half hectares planted with gall oaks.
When it detects the characteristic smell of the precious fungus, it automatically begins to dig to unearth what is considered by some to be the black gold of gastronomy.
Kayra the Truffle Spaniel
Kayra is a Spanish spaniel trained since she was a puppy by the truffle farmer and discoverer of new genera of fungi that until then had not been described in the scientific literature, Julio Cabero, who in recent weeks has traveled through different parts of the province of Zamora together with technicians from the Zamora Provincial Council to observe the evolution of some of the mycorrhized plots with black truffles.
Julio Cabero reminds EFE that a dog’s sense of smell is “between two hundred and a thousand times superior to that of a human being”, which is why a truffle, which also gives off an intense and characteristic odor, is very easy for him to detect.
His training, so that he can locate the truffle and mark where it is without spoiling or eating it, is done through games and, of course, after each discovery there is always a reward in the form of a canine treat.
However, the black truffle is not an autochthonous fungus in the province of Zamora and it does not occur naturally as it does in other provinces of Castilla y León such as Soria, Palencia, Burgos or Segovia.
14,000 mycorrhized trees
In this regard, the Forestry Engineer and Forest Technician responsible for the Zamora Provincial Council nursery, Berta Martín, details to EFE that Zamora was a pioneer in mycorrhization with black truffle in a project that began experimentally almost two decades ago. hand of the Higher Technical School of Agricultural Engineering of Palencia of the University of Valladolid.
Since then, the Agriculture and Livestock Service of the Zamora Provincial Council has planted some 14,000 holm oak trees and mycorrhized gall oaks with black truffles that occupy nearly fifty hectares of the province in developed projects, in some cases in collaboration with municipalities and individuals who They have seen the economic potential of truffle farming.
The first parcel to bear fruit was one of two and a half hectares located in Aspariegos, which took eleven years to produce its first black truffles, while that of the Provincial Nursery did so thirteen years after setting up the plantation and another from La Bóveda de Toro It only required eight years to get the first truffles.
For the moment, the productions are still small and last year they only reached 1.8 kilos but as the years go by there will be more plots that also produce this black gold underground and the current ones will increase their production “up to about 40 or 50 kilos per hectare in the best of cases”, says Berta Martín.
The provincial deputy for Agriculture and Livestock of the Zamora County Council, Ángel Sánchez, explains that his department has opted to provide alternatives to traditional agriculture and highlights the potential that black truffle cultivation has as a supplement to income for the agricultural sector.
In fact, in the current campaign, the production of the provincial nursery was auctioned off and a Zamora hotel establishment bought it at a price of 1,001 euros per kilo, a price for which, apart from the environmental benefits, it is worthwhile. wait an average of ten years for mycorrhization with black truffles to start bearing fruit. EFE