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.
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