Abstract
Tuber brumale is a European edible truffle species that is often viewed as a contaminant in truffle orchards, as it visually resembles more valuable black truffles such as T. melanosporum, but differs in aroma and flavor and sells for a much lower price. Although T. brumale is not native to or intentionally cultivated in North America, it was reported to have been accidently introduced into British Columbia in 2014 and North Carolina in 2020. However, in winter of 2021, various truffle orchards in eastern North America produced truffles that differed from the anticipated harvest of T. melanosporum. Molecular analysis of these specimens confirmed T. brumale truffle fruiting bodies from ten orchards distributed across six eastern USA states. Phylogenetic analysis of nuclear ribosomal ITS and 28S DNA sequences indicated that all samples belong to the T. brumale A1 haplogroup, the genetic subgroup of T. brumale that is more common in western Europe. This pattern of widespread fruiting of T. brumale in North American truffle orchards is likely the result of T. brumale being introduced in the initial inoculation of trees used as hosts in T. melanosporum truffle cultivation. We review other examples of introduced non-target truffle species and strategies for limiting their impact on truffle cultivation.
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All fungi specimens are deposited at the Florida Museum of Natural History (FLAS-F), and DNA sequences are deposited at NCBI GenBank.
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Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank several anonymous truffle orchard owners and truffle collectors and their dogs for contributing specimens and information that made this work possible and to Alexis Guerin and Gian Maria Nico Benucci for providing images and discussion on Tuber melanosporum and T. brumale. We are also grateful to Jud Van Wyk and Marc Friedman for laboratory assistance and mentorship of AS.
Funding
This work was supported by the US National Science Foundation grant DEB-1946445 (to GB and MES) and US National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (Fellowship no. 2019277707) (to BL). AS was supported through US National Science Foundation DEB 1737898 to GB.
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BL, MS, and GB conceived the project. BL and AS obtained samples and conducted labwork. BL and GB compiled data, conducted analyses, and prepared figures. GB and MS provided resources to facilitate this work. All authors contributed to writing and editing the final manuscript.
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Lemmond, B., Sow, A., Bonito, G. et al. Accidental cultivation of the European truffle Tuber brumale in North American truffle orchards. Mycorrhiza 33, 221–228 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00572-023-01114-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00572-023-01114-8