Teruel held the I International Congress of Trufficulture during the first days of March. The event brought together 270 people from 23 countries. 

During four days of intense work, from 5^th to 8^th  March, the attendees have approached to the international reality of the cultivation and exploitation of truffle from different perspectives, basically scientific.

• In the one hundred of works presented in this congress there is reflected that truffle cultivation is a reality all over the world. Researchs from Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Oceania and Africa display this fact.
  
• Trufficulture is an affordable agriculture-forestry alternative in the Mediterranean areas which are characterized by poor soil and extreme climate, where other cultivations or forest exploitations are not profitable. It contributes to reforestation as well, and thanks to its cultivation characteristics, trufficulture controls the soil erosion and avoids the forest fires.
• Recover truffle exploitation as a tool for the sustainable developement of the rural areas will revitalize the multiple-use of the forests, that has been lost in the last times.
• As in the previous truffle congress, there is still a necessity of making uniform the methods used in the certification of mycorrhized seedlings in order to have one European standard.
• New technologies are powerful tools that help in the management and planning of new orchards.  Beside them appear other new molecular tools to study the evolution of mycelia and ectomycorrhizae before the firsts truffles appear.
• The importance of the physical factors of the soil, and also chemicals, in the processes that triggering truffles production arise, and also the importance of the organisms that live together with it: another fungi, mycorrhizal or patogens, insects, mesofauna,…
• Truffles are a first-class product. Looking for the processes that improve its commercialization is an emergency.
• One of the great advances of the last times has been the clarification of the black truffle life cycle.  After its genome sequencing in 2010, there is a way to study the mechanisms of adaptation to the environment and the keys of its vegetative phase and its reproduction.
• There are still a lot of challenges, but we are making progress.

The congress has contributed to boost knowledge transfer about the lasts scientific advances in the sector among researchers, managers and producers coming from all over the world and the needs of market operators and public administrator, in orther to guarantee the sustainable production of truffles in different zones.

In the closing ceremony, the Organizing Committee awarded few communications: the younger researcher, the most original communications and the most innovative poster. These works were selected over 100 communications of great scientific level.

The Congress was organized by the Aragon Government, with its Industry and Agriculture Department as well as CITA, in collaboration with Teruel City Council, Teruel Council, Huesca  Council, Zaragoza Council, National Institute for Agricultural and Food Research and Technology (INIA), Aragón Developement Institute, Dinópolis, Teruel Chamber of Commerce, Teruel Employers’ Federation, Caja Rural of Teruel, Teruel Black Truffle Growers Federation (ATRUTER), Gúdar-Javalambre region, Spanish Truffle Growers Federation (FEET), University of Zaragoza, Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV), Forestry Spanish Society (SECF) and Cesefor Foundation

Quelle: www.tuber2013.com