 Hello and welcome to Farming Matters. I am your host, Erin Schneider. I work with the North Central Sare program and I also farm and I'm here with you from Wisconsin. I'm also here with Marie Flanigan. Producer of Farming Matters and Mimi Kokoska is going to take you to her farm and tell us about her project and what she learned from her Sare Grant and to demystify what our truffles and what she's discovering along the way. So Mimi, thank you for joining us. I'm going to toss it over to you and we look forward to learning about your Sare Grant. Thank you, Erin. I'm Mimi Kokoska. I'm the actual physician surgeon by background. I became interested in farming. Really earlier in life, however, really had the opportunity to purchase land that we've been working on and it was natural in many ways for us to pivot from the standard crops such as soy and corn in the agricultural acreage that we have in Indiana to include truffles until truffle inoculated trees to be specific. So what the slide shows is on the left is the surface type fungi or fungus that we're accustomed to. So mushrooms, we see morels and relatively the size of those morels that many individuals are aware of and have tasted and are almost obsessed with in Indiana in the Midwest. And then we see shiitakes that are grown on logs there on the upper right on the left side of the screen which is a surface obviously mushroom fungus and then the golden oysters. So those are examples of surface fungi or fungus. And so we're really familiar with those. However, subterranean fungi is a good example of course are truffles and they grow underground. So you can't see them usually when you're walking through the woods or wherever. And that's what they look like on the right hand side. These clumps, if you will, and these are specifically what you see there are white truffles, the most highly valued truffles in the world. And it shows a good example is the partner, if you will, and that it grows along with and that is a tree. In this case, it's a hazelnut tree there and it grows underground. And that is the good and the challenge, if you will, of truffles. How do you find them if they're underground? And to get them to grow in our climate, our growth zone, given the cold winters that we have, is part of the challenge as well. So I will share with you, here's an example of the tuber magnetum on the left. That's the white truffle in the tuber milanus forum, the black truffle, if you will, on the right. And these are just examples to wet your palate, so to speak, on how I've actually eaten truffles. These are examples of truffles I've actually had. So, fortunate for me, I've been able to sample these and this is what really spurred our pursuit. And I mentioned earlier, the truffles really stimulate all your senses and from your smell to taste, touch. So, this is an example of one of the challenges that we experience is in agricultural soils. And soil is so important for farming, of course, and the quality of that soil. But the pH in this case, because it had been historically farmed for many, many decades in traditional farming, the pH tends to be quite acidic. And if let's just say seven, pH of seven is neutral, the pH here we can see on the screen shows the soil samples that we took were 6.5 and 6.7. And this in July 7th was 6.9 and 6.6, approximately the time that we applied lime and we're talking lots of lime, tons and tons of lime per acre. So, that's a challenge and this is just an example of what it looked like at the field as we were prepping it before planting the following spring. So, we also applied some straw and prior to disking it into the soil with the lime and we also had some cover crops in the field to add organic matter and improve the quality of that soil. And this is all before even planting the truffle inoculated trees. So, you can see a lot of work. So, these are just examples of cover crops and a list of some of the cover crops that we applied. And we also developed leaf compost and this is all in preparation again for our spring planting the following year. And a crude but important diagram on the left is just shows the planting distances between each inoculated tree to plan and the density matters. So, because the canopy of the trees, the earlier that closes the canopy and by its branches and leaves, the higher likelihood of truffle growth because of canopy and then of course machinery and when we're planting planting the plant over a thousand we ended up with a thousand three hundred and fifty trees digging the holes we use the mechanical auger here. So, this just shows an example of our system and digging the hole then planting a tree putting a five foot high cover on it and attaching it. And here's an example of the real deal with our dog. No, that is not a truffle dog. That is a livestock guardian dog and I think we're teaching him to guard the tubes trees. And it was it was cold because we planted it the toward the end of March of 2022. So cold and wet out there and those are the tree tubes as I mentioned earlier and we really had a pretty good success rate and that was what the counter was showing there and we about a month afterwards we estimate less than 3% loss of the trees. So, here is the pH nine months post slime and we could see the pH has improved here it's raising out of seven and seven point three. The cation exchange capacity has improved as well it's much higher and I point out the calcium as well. So, one of the challenges that we met was really rainfall all of the challenges and so I'm sharing with you here the NOAA if you will the precipitation and I use Indianapolis as a similar latitude because our farming town is small enough that it really doesn't track it consistently so I just used the same latitude in Indiana for this and it really shows that when we planted in 2022 this row down here just shows the in March there it was, remember I just said it was really wet and cold indeed so if we look across the last 10 years almost it was one of the higher rainfalls. Then we come to June and it's in red circled because it was dry. We go back pretty much 10 years one of the lowest in rainfall so ergo the challenge for us because these were seedlings really fragile in that sense so we go to the end of year we just see the end of the year total is low relative to the prior 10 years as well so what did we do? This is a picture of the well so fortunately in our community we have somebody who puts in wells so he came and installed it and here we go this is the system that we used for providing water hydration to our poor little seedlings and that's how we that's how we dealt with it so this also shows the another challenge and this is a google map of a weed an invasive weed called cockabur and we could see where Indiana is here and there's a lot of cockabur pretty dense it's not as bad as some other areas so this we had to do weed management or outside the tubes and then also there are some inside the tubes I'm going to show a picture and then we use the leaf compost I showed you earlier to provide a zone if you will of coverage and moisture so I'll show you a picture of those cockabur later but here's another example of a threat so or challenge that we face so you may think well why did we tube the trees so for any deer hunters out there or deer experts wildlife experts we see deer tracks as well as the scat and deer tend to rub and really eat as well the needle stems and trees and damage and kill them so really could reduce the success rate and this is our livestock guardian dog being very protective of the trees so we talked about cover crop on the left and we use that but some of the cover crop also can get into the tubes and so we had to remove some of those from inside tubes and then replace the replace the tubes the other thing is bent tubes was a challenge from the wind and you can see that here so we could unfortunately at that time the trees were small enough or short enough that really didn't affect the trees if we could catch it and then upright it and we learned a few things the higher the there's a balance but the higher we could put the stakes and the tubes secure the tubes the less likely it'll bend so but the stakes also have to go into the ground far enough to be secure so there's the the balance here you go a little straighter better posture on those tubes and we could see through the seasons the the green leaves behave like they would for oaks and turn brown if you will in the fall and through the winter so the truffles actually need to be inoculated into the trees so we acquired truffle inoculated trees saplings and planted those so it they grow in conjunction with each other through the years so it takes somewhere between it could be a little shorter than six years it could be as long as I've heard 20 years before somebody can find truffles on their inoculated trees so so the cockabur remember I showed you the google map with the distribution in the United States well this was our joy to have these cockabur's not really grow and the cockabur's are very difficult if you will to work with because they they truly to their name they perform these I mean they produce these burrs and they stick onto the dogs fur they hurt your fingers if you don't have thick gloves on and the benefit the strategy however is for farming in general you don't see them quite as much in farmed land agricultural crop land because a lot of farmers will use pre-emergence they will actually suppress these weeds from growing of course when we're transitioning we did not have pre-emergence or use pre-emergence and so lo and behold these things sprouted up surprise and so combination of they will pull out pretty readily and they do not do well in the shade they have a strong preference for full sun so the idea is I remove the burden the seed burden over time by removing them early on before they concede that's our strategy as well as closing that canopy over time it will suppress the cockabur's from growing so when there is an abundance of truffles it's a finite lifespan unless they're dehydrated or used in some or preserved in some other way but really fresh truffles have a finite lifespan and these are just examples of of truffles like I said I've been able to partake in and in different places and on the left is actually some black truffles that I had here in the United States so not in Indiana though not yet I really you know appreciate all the like the step-by-step and like talking about both the challenges and then what well also the transformation and highlights too like you how you're rehabbing the soil and making it supportive of of like hardwood and truffle source when a couple questions that people may like other farmers or the growers may like just come to mind how how did you go about sourcing the inoculated trees well so I am a member of the North American Truffle Growers Association so that's a good resource there are a number of growers not not I'd say about a handful of truffle inoculated tree growers and distributors if you will in the United States so you want to focus you know within the country just because of transport time getting them into the soil then you know becomes well who it's a trust you have to decide who you're going to trust it's a huge investment financial time as you can see so it's a long-term investment and you won't know if you have truffles for many years so there's a lot of trust in there as to where you know which vendor you may decide to go with I I think any of the top vendors would have been fine there are some nuances in the agreements that one needs to be aware of and so that becomes important too and what are you going to do with your truffles you know are there any clauses in those agreements where you might have to disclose or credit or you know is there financial impact in that agreement so that all came into play into how we decided with what which vendor we went with so is there any other like kind of key lessons or advice you would offer to other farmers who are considering this you mentioned connecting with the network but like things that you're like oh wow if I were to start again I would have done XYZ or I think soil the significance of soil quality of soil amending the soil cannot be under rated if you will and being very intentional about that if one has a lot of time to prep that soil then great because you can check that by doing soil samples and testing and looking at the impact of what you do the other is just being aware and prepared to take care of and eliminate any significant weeds I think that was a that was one of my pop-up surprise so I think just being prepared and one has to really check on the trees especially in the early stages as you saw some of the bent tubes and really learning from that Mimi thank you for just like helping share just like all the steps and like opening our eyes to like and something like oh yeah we can grow this right but then I'll like wait a minute let's pause there's a lot of research and a lot of a lot of thought and intention and investment that went into your project yeah thank you so I'm this I'm a geek so I tend to I am really so but but I really do enjoy sharing that sharing sharing really everything right so an experience so I really would love to do this in person and let you sample some of the things that are unique to our area