Scientists: Truffles hit by global warming
Source: AFP |
November 28, 2012, Wednesday
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SCIENTISTS said yesterday they had proof that climate change was hitting the Perigord black truffle, a delight of gourmets around the world.
Trufflers have long suspected global warming is affecting tuber melanosporum - dubbed "the black diamond" on account of its color and extraordinary price - in its native habitat in southwestern France, Spain and Italy.
A century ago, French trufflers notched up a harvest that, according to legend, reached 1,000 tons in a year. In the 1960s, truffle yields were still 200-300 tons annually.
But in recent years, it has fallen to 25 tons, prompting retail prices to rocket to as high as 2,000 euros (US$2,500) a kilogram.
In a letter to the journal Nature Climate Change, Swiss scientists said they now had clear data that drier summers were to blame, as this affected the oak and hazelnut trees on which the prized fungi grows, a process known as symbiosis.
The team found harvests in France's Perigord and in Spain's Aragon region fell at roughly the same pace from 1970-2006, and this trend was in line with an overall decline in summer rainfall.
Harvests in northern Italy's Piedmont and Umbria also retreated, but not as much.
Trufflers have long suspected global warming is affecting tuber melanosporum - dubbed "the black diamond" on account of its color and extraordinary price - in its native habitat in southwestern France, Spain and Italy.
A century ago, French trufflers notched up a harvest that, according to legend, reached 1,000 tons in a year. In the 1960s, truffle yields were still 200-300 tons annually.
But in recent years, it has fallen to 25 tons, prompting retail prices to rocket to as high as 2,000 euros (US$2,500) a kilogram.
In a letter to the journal Nature Climate Change, Swiss scientists said they now had clear data that drier summers were to blame, as this affected the oak and hazelnut trees on which the prized fungi grows, a process known as symbiosis.
The team found harvests in France's Perigord and in Spain's Aragon region fell at roughly the same pace from 1970-2006, and this trend was in line with an overall decline in summer rainfall.
Harvests in northern Italy's Piedmont and Umbria also retreated, but not as much.
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