Photo/Illutration The artificially cultivated truffles grown by the experts at the Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute (Provided by the Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute)

TSUKUBA, Ibaraki Prefecture--It's no trifle matter for mushroom lovers in Japan, as the Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute has announced that it has successfully cultivated artificial truffles for the first time in the country. 

However, it will take some time to commercialize the artificially cultivated truffles, according to experts at the institute, which is headquartered in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture.

But they also say that the announcement, made Feb. 9, raises hopes that Japanese someday can enjoy homegrown truffles as a more familiar food.

“We will now research in what conditions we can cultivate truffles to achieve a stable crop production," said Takashi Yamanaka, director of the institute’s Tohoku research center, who led the study. "We aim to commercialize the truffles in 10 years’ time.”

A truffe is a type of fungus that grows to form lumps in soil and is renowned as a luxurious food item used for Western cuisine.

It is highly valued for its odor just like matsutake mushrooms.

According to the institute, around 200 types of truffles are known to exist in the world. They are artificially cultivated in European countries.

Japan imports truffles from overseas countries, but they are expensive--European ones cost around 80,000 yen ($604) per kilogram.

More than 20 types of wild truffles have been found in Japan, but they are rare. So far, Japan had not successfully cultivated artificial truffles.

In 2015, the institute started a study to artificially cultivate the tuber japonicum, a type of white truffle unique to Japan.

The institute chose the tuber japonicum because it has similar odor to white truffles grown in the United States and European countries; it is grown in large areas of Japan stretching from Iwate Prefecture to Okayama Prefecture; and it can grow to a size exceeding 10 centimeters.

The institute’s experts applied spores of tuber japonicum to the roots of jolcham oaks to allow the two to coexist. Then, they planted the oak trees in test sites in four areas in Japan. 

In November, several years after the planting of the trees, the experts found that a total of 22 truffles had grown in the test sites in Ibaraki and Kyoto prefectures.

They were nine centimeters across and weighed 60 grams each at most, large enough to use as food ingredients.

When the experts ate them, they found that they had a similar odor to garlic just like Western white truffles and their flavor was as good.

It is difficult to artificially cultivate truffles, because unlike shiitake or enoki mushrooms, they grow among the roots of trees.

Experts say that the artificial cultivation of matsutake mushrooms hasn’t been successful for the same reason.

The institute’s experts had many failures until finally succeeding in artificially cultivating truffles.

For example, rabbits once ate the truffle seedlings.

On another attempt, the experts wrongly celebrated after mistaking other mushrooms, which looked exactly like truffles, for genuine ones.

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