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CapitalPress.com
December 25, 2015
People & Places
Fungus expert spawns truffle orchards
Charles Lefevre
inoculates trees
with culinary
fungus
Western
Innovator
Capital Press
Charles Lefevre
Occupation: Founder of
New World Truffieres, which
inoculates trees with the
fungus that produces truffles
Age: 50
Hometown: Eugene, Ore.
Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press
Charles Lefevre, a mycologist, inoculates trees with fungi that produce truffles, which are noted for
their aromatic qualities. Lefevre and his wife, Leslie Scott, also founded the annual Oregon Truffle Fes-
tival to promote native varieties of the fungus.
cessional organisms. When
you wipe the slate clean,
they’re among the first organ-
isms to arrive.”
Aside from providing
landowners with trees, Lefe-
vre conducts site evaluations
to see if a property has the
basic criteria needed for ef-
fective truffle production and
what can be done to correct
deficiencies.
He’s found that the fun-
gus is adaptable to a broader
range of soil conditions than
traditionally thought to be
appropriate, likely because
the organism is liberated
from its natural competitors.
Truffles prefer well-
drained, rocky soils, but Le-
fevre’s first customer planted
inoculated trees in an area
with a high seasonal water
table.
“In spite of that, they’re
getting good production,” he
said, adding that several pro-
ductive orchards currently
exist in the Northwest.
Lefevre produces inocu-
lated trees at three nurseries
in Oregon and one in Flori-
da, though he doesn’t divulge
their exact locations to pro-
tect his company’s propri-
etary technology.
New World Truffieres, as
the firm is called, is working
with nine species of truffle
that colonize oak, Douglas
fir, hazelnut and pecan trees.
Historically found in
the wild, truffles were first
grown in orchards of inocu-
lated trees in France in 1977.
The method was replicated in
California a decade later.
“It proved the concept
truffles could be grown else-
where in the world,” Lefevre
said.
The truffle orchard indus-
try is still new and will likely
follow the trajectory of the
U.S. wine industry, he said,
noting that the first vineyards
were planted in California
150 years ago.
“It’s not going to be over-
night,” Lefevre said.
Aside from producing truf-
fle-inoculated trees, Lefevre
and his wife, Leslie Scott,
launched the annual Oregon
Truffle Festival a decade ago
to promote native varieties of
the fungus.
Truffles that are indige-
nous to Oregon’s forests have
often been considered inferior
to European species, or a less
expensive alternative to the
real thing, but Lefevre has
found they are just as aromat-
ic if harvested correctly.
The practice of raking be-
neath trees is common among
commercial truffle hunters,
but this often yields truffles
that are unripe, he said.
Specially trained dogs, on
the other hand, find truffles
that are ready for harvest,
offering a measure of quality
control, Lefevre said. “If it
doesn’t smell, they don’t find
it.”
Oregon truffles harvested
with the aid of dogs fetched
more than $700 per pound last
winter, up from $40 to $70
when Lefevre began hunting
them as a college student 20
years ago.
“The goal isn’t to make
them out of reach for local
people, it’s to give local peo-
ple a chance to make more
Education: Bachelor of
science in biology from
the University of Oregon in
1990, Ph.D. in mycology
from Oregon State Universi-
ty in 2002
Family: Wife, Leslie Scott,
and two dogs
money,” he said.
When Lefevre entered
graduate school at Oregon
State University in the mid-
1990s, he gathered truffles to
supplement his income, but
his studies were primarily
focused on matsutake mush-
rooms, which are also mycor-
rhizal.
Over the course of his
studies, he encountered truffle
experts and realized he knew
enough about the fungus to
begin inoculating trees him-
self.
In 2000, a landowner in
Oregon asked him to inocu-
late domestic hazelnuts with
the fungus because importa-
tion of the trees from outside
the state was prohibited for
phytosanitary reasons.
He then met other land-
owners interested in planting
orchards, and soon a new
company was born.
“I launched my business
before I ever graduated,” Le-
fevre said. “I never needed to
apply for a job when I grad-
uated.”
Oregon FFA students collect 130 tons of food
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Photos by Geoff Parks/For the Capital Press
Alex Hawes, 17, uses a forklift to unload donated onions for
repackaging at Perrydale High School during the school FFA Chap-
ter’s Food For All project.
Kennewick, Wash.
Thursday, Jan. 7
American Farm Bureau Annual
Convention, Orlando, Fla.
2016 Precision Farming Expo,
Three Rivers Convention Center,
Kennewick, Wash.
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Lorenz said.
The ambassadors line up
partners, donors and volun-
teers for Food For All, which
begins gearing up in October.
For example, ambassadors
Maddy Ford and Michelle
Sekafetz, both 14, contacted
“possible partners” — donors,
farmers and transport services
— via letter.
“We then set up appoint-
ments with them to go and
talk about the program,”
Sekafetz said.
“All the schools work to-
gether on this project,” Sekaf-
etz said, adding that the am-
bassadors and other students
have traveled as far away as
Union in northeast Oregon
and Ontario in the southeast
corner of the state to make
their pitches. Food For All
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Three Rivers Convention Center,
Kennewick, Wash.
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food to at-risk families.
Lorenz said a new wrin-
kle was added this year to the
structure of the program that
assures it hews to one of its
missions as “a service learn-
ing project to teach students a
variety of skills while putting
food on the table for needy
families.”
Hutchinson, who still
works long hours alongside
the kids each December help-
ing organize the work, intro-
duced a new designation for
six of this year’s FFA chapter
members, making them Food
For All Ambassadors.
“We wanted to start a pro-
gram so we could get some
of the leaders from within
our school” to perform out-
reach, public relations and
cold-call contact functions,
Calendar
Capital Press Managers
Mike O’Brien .............................Publisher
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By GEOFF PARKS
The Lower Willamette
FFA District’s Food For
All program headed into its
stretch run with the finish line
— Dec. 23 — in sight and a
goal of 130 tons of food for
needy Oregon families nearly
all collected and distributed or
ready for distribution.
Food For All is a joint
project of the district’s high
school FFA chapters at Per-
rydale, Willamina, Dayton,
Amity, Sheridan and Yam-
hill-Carlton. It was created in
1997 by Kirk Hutchinson, the
now-retired Perrydale FFA
chapter adviser.
At the end of each year,
the Perrydale K-12 education
complex resembles a beehive
of activity. Students from kin-
dergarten through high school
age work furiously to collect,
sort, package and distribute
potatoes, rutabagas, onions,
squash, cabbage, dried and
fresh fruits, beets and other
vegetables and produce over
the course of the first three
weeks of December, said Per-
rydale’s first-year FFA advis-
er, Christina Lorenz.
That food is delivered by
the Perrydale students and
teachers to various areas
around the state identified
as economically depressed
and in need of food services,
with the goal of providing
40-pound bags of farm-fresh
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Chief operating officer
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
While the technical craft
of Charles Lefevre’s job is
complex, the purpose is sim-
ple: Encouraging the natural
symbiosis between trees and
fungi.
In Lefevre’s case, the fungi
are of the Tuber genus, which
produce highly sought-after
truffles and colonize the roots
of numerous tree species.
Truffles are known for
their culinary desirability and
high cost, but the primary role
of the fungus is as an exten-
sion of the tree’s root system,
helping it absorb water and
nutrients. In exchange, it’s
supplied with starches and
sugars for growth.
“Mycorrhizal fungi and
mycorrhizal trees never live
without each other,” Lefevre
said. “You don’t have to trick
them.”
Even so, inoculating tree
roots with the fungus in a
nursery setting requires pro-
viding the right levels of nu-
trients, water, air and light.
Lefevre must also conduct
genetic testing to ensure that
his trees — which are sold
to landowners across North
America — are colonized
with the right species of truf-
fle, rather than some other
type of mycorrhizal fungus.
Luckily for aspiring truffle
farmers, the fungus will thrive
in a “simplified” environment,
such as a planted orchard, and
doesn’t require the complex
ecosystem of an old growth
forest.
“They’re exactly the type
of organism we can grow.
They like living with us,” Le-
fevre said. “They’re early suc-
Capital Press
Saturday, Jan. 9
American Farm Bureau Annual
Convention, Orlando, Fla.
Far West AgriBusiness Asso-
ciation annual winter conference,
College of Southern Idaho, Twin
Falls, Idaho.
Sunday, Jan. 10
Potato Expo 2016, Mirage Hotel
and Casino, Las Vegas, Nev.
Wednesday, Jan. 13
Monday, Jan. 11
American Farm Bureau Annual
Convention, Orlando, Fla.
Tuesday, Jan. 12
Cropping Systems Conference,
Three Rivers Convention Center,
Kennewick, Wash.
Cropping Systems Conference,
Three Rivers Convention Center,
Far West AgriBusiness Asso-
ciation annual winter conference,
College of Southern Idaho, Twin
Falls, Idaho.
American Farm Bureau Annual
Convention, Orlando, Fla.
American Farm Bureau Annual
Convention, Orlando, Fla.
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Perrydale High School FFA Food For All ambassador Kyndle
Moore, in the yellow shirt, shows Perrydale Elementary School
students how to bag oranges.
donations have been going to
the economically depressed
Coos Bay area for 14 years,
she said.
“By coincidence one year,
we were talking to someone in
Coos Bay who said he got a
real good deal on potatoes —
$1 a bag,” Hutchinson said. “I
told him I could get him all
the bags of potatoes he want-
ed for free, and that started the
partnership with Coos Bay.
“Now, we always go to
Coos Bay because they make
a donation to our program to
buy string and bags and pay
for some meals for these kids
while they’re on the road or
whatever we need to keep our
program going.”
The more pro-active ef-
forts of the ambassador team
seem to have paid off, as the
original goal for this year of
253,000 pounds of food col-
lected jumped to 260,000
pounds with a week to go.
“We are just overwhelmed
with the amount of things to
do (in December),” Hutchin-
son said.
Potato Expo 2016, Mirage Hotel
and Casino, Las Vegas, Nev.
Wednesday, Jan. 20
Thursday, Jan. 14
Far West AgriBusiness Asso-
ciation annual winter conference,
College of Southern Idaho, Twin
Falls, Idaho.
Oregon Mint Growers 67th An-
nual Meeting, Salishan Lodge and
Golf Resort, Gleneden Beach, Ore.
Potato Expo 2016, Mirage Hotel
and Casino, Las Vegas, Nev.
Friday, Jan. 15
Oregon Mint Growers 67th An-
nual Meeting, Salishan Lodge and
Golf Resort, Gleneden Beach,
Ore.
2016 EcoFarm Conference, Asi-
lomar Conference Grounds, Pacific
Grove, Calif.
Thursday, Jan. 21
2016 EcoFarm Conference, Asi-
lomar Conference Grounds, Pacific
Grove, Calif.
Friday, Jan. 22
2016 EcoFarm Conference, Asi-
lomar Conference Grounds, Pacific
Grove, Calif.
Saturday, Jan. 23
2016 EcoFarm Conference, Asi-
lomar Conference Grounds, Pacific
Grove, Calif.
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Index
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Dairy .................................... 14
Idaho .................................... 10
Livestock ............................. 14
Markets ............................... 15
Opinion .................................. 6
Oregon .................................. 9
Washington ..........................11
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