Why is it so hard to replicate the ideal conditions are plants like truffle or wasabi? Like I get they can only grow under certain conditions but what about it’s surroundings is so hard to replicate?
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I can’t speak about wasabi, but truffles are hard to grow because they actually grow from fungi that germinate alongside trees. These structures don’t form rapidly the same way you might easily be able to farm portobello or shiitake mushrooms. These fungal life cycles are extremely complex and not well understood (it’s a very niche product, and where there isn’t a massive audience to appreciate it, there isn’t a ton of money funneling in to research it), and the conditions under which truffle growth happens can vary widely from place to place, making it hard to find a one-size-fits-all solution to allow for mass production. Replicating this process on a larger scale is very expensive and time-consuming since you constantly have to generate new mycelium structures (which form mushrooms and which in turn form truffles) on new trees and let them grow up together. Truffle farming has only just started to come about in the last decade, but it’s still not done very efficiently.
It’s all about profit margin. To replicate certain conditions reduces the profit to a point where it is not viable and if you flood a market with something that was previously rare it can devalue said item. Therefore rarities often stay that way due to low profitability and potential decreased future profitability if the market is flooded.
Very few crops are easy to farm in a variety of environments, and many of those crops are only easy to farm due to millennia of human cultivation selecting for hardiness and adaptability, plus a bonus century of scientific research. There are far far more things that grow only in certain regions or only in small quantities, many of which we don’t care about because they don’t taste or smell particularly good.
Humans have never before had much of a need to grow large quantities of truffle or wasabi. The cuisines that use them only need a little bit, and those cuisines used to be highly regional. It’s only recently that people in North America (for example) wanted ready access to fresh versions of them, and compared to how long it used to take to ramp up production of an agricultural product, we’ve made remarkable progress in just a few decades. There are active wasabi farms in the U.S. and projects to grow truffles that have had intermittent success.
Wasabi needs very specific conditions to grow, such as shade, near running water and temperature, but in addition to that, it does not keep long without spoiling. So you need a fresh piece of wasabi (preferably grated on shark skin) to serve it.
The simple answer us that we don’t know all of the ideal conditions. Soil chemistry and microbes play a huge role in plant and fungus development. Even if we did know all of them they might be hard or expensive to reproduce. Some of those conditions also change through time and the timing is important.
They require a highly complex and specific environment in which to grow.
Snow is very rarely found in Jamaica, so you would have to manufacture it there if you wanted it. Since snow can’t happen within the temperature range and humidity factor of Jamaica, you would have to farm it. It’s a bit weird if an explanation, but simple enough to understand.
Truffles are overrated mushrooms farmed in a specific forested environment in Spain and other nations. It has to be the right soil, right trees, right climate, temp, humidity, etc. Terraforming is extremely expensive and can ultimately fail, like organ transplants.
But, some truffle farmers are actively trying to slow down the scientific understanding, as the high price of the product alone drives demand from people who may have otherwise written it off (disliking mushrooms). And since they’re rare and hard to farm, it keeps the industry financially lucrative.
On the one hand, idiots will buy mushrooms at exorbitant prices just to say they tried it for the gram, and the other hand the farmers make tons of money off of a fungus that ruins a dish if you use more than a sliver, much like saffron.
I’m a crop geneticist. I have no specific experience with wasabi, but, [according to these people](https://www.thewasabistore.com/thewasabistore/r6z2brm2hzzmyh45c5swst6wy955c8) who sell starts, they say it is not actually difficult to grow. The two tricks they claim are that it does need full shade, and it does need a lot of water, but apart from that, it can (again, according to them) grow in a barrel in your own backyard (assuming you’re in an environment that doesn’t exceed its frost hardiness). They specifically have a picture of a barrel full of wasabi plants in their home’s backyard. [This unrelated page](https://balconygardenweb.com/how-to-grow-wasabi-anywhere-growing-in-pots/) recommends that if you’re in a highly temperate or highly variable climate, you should grow it indoors, ideally in a northern spot where shade can be maintained. The other thing they say is that it doesn’t like fluctuating temperatures.
Honestly, based on the description, it sounds to me like it might be the ideal plant to grow indoors… except for the fact that it takes 12-24 months til harvest. Thriving in full shade is unusual for a crop plant. A plant with those parameters definitely would be difficult to grow at commercial scale in most places, but it doesn’t strictly require a pristine forest river.
The longer and more complex the lifecycle of an organism, and the more requirements it has, the harder and more expensive it is to cultivate. Vanilla would also be a good example. It is an epiphyte orchid that has a very specific ecological niche and relationships with other organisms. You practically need to replicate the whole rainforest to get it right.
I’ve successfully had a wasabi plant for a few months now, and I’ve actually done very little to look after it but its super healthy and currently gone to seed. It lives along the side of my house where its cooler and tends to be a bit damp but still gets quite a bit of sun, and I only water it 1-2 times a week currently. I live in Australia
Truffle is hard because to grow it in a controlled environment they have to grow symbiotically with a tree such as chestnut (you put the spores in to saplings I think), wait for the tree to grow, and then hope they have fruited underground where you can’t actually see them. And they only like it cool and damp as well so
Both just need a good few things to lìne up just right to happen.
Wasabi grown naturally is already a pretty rare plant.
Creating a very cold, loose gravel, running water, nutrient rich environment is surprisingly difficult in a mass production setting. Only a few farms in the world have been able to create the right conditions for Wasabi to be grown reliably.
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