Fungus-growing trees boost profit

By SIMON COLLINS

Scientists have found a way to grow exotic mushrooms on pine trees that could add up to $4000 a hectare to the value of New Zealand's pine forests.

Professor Wang Yun and Dr Ian Hall of Crop and Food Research in Dunedin have become the first scientists in the world to grow the orange saffron milk cap mushroom by injecting it into pine trees.

Dr Hall said it should be possible to grow up to 50kg of saffron milk cap a hectare. At current prices of $40 to $80 a kilogram, the mushroom would yield returns of $2000 to $4000 a hectare.

"That makes a huge impact on the profitability of the pine plantations," he said. Two years ago Dr Hall's team produced another mushroom, shoro, also in pine trees.

Crop and Food is negotiating a joint venture called Juken with a Japanese partner which will fund research in return for a licence to sell the mushrooms in Japan.

The institute also has a 20 per cent stake in Truffle Investments NZ (Trinz), which promises returns of more than $200,000 a hectare based on European prices for elite Perigord black truffles.

Truffles are underground mushrooms that grow on the roots of oak and hazel trees. They are considered a delicacy like caviar or foie gras.

Dr Hall's brother Alan Hall produced New Zealand's first commercially grown truffles near Gisborne in 1993. Five other truffieres, or plantations, are now in production in the Bay of Plenty, Taumarunui, Paraparaumu, near Nelson and near Christchurch. About 80 others have been planted.

Trinz chief executive Thomas Frank said his company was investing about $5 million in two truffiere property developments at Ohoka, near Christchurch, and at Mangawhai, north of Auckland.

At Ohoka, Trinz has planted an orchard of 1800 oak and hazel trees and is selling 16 surrounding lifestyle blocks, each with a house and 210 trees. The Mangawhai project involves a 12,000-tree truffiere owned by Trinz, 25 houses and a sheep farm to be owned jointly by the 25 homeowners.

Christchurch property developer Tim Archibald initially took the other 80 per cent stake in the company when it was set up in 2001, but it is now bringing in new investors to repeat the concept.

"The main thing about widening the shareholder base is getting more of the large commercial planting happening," Frank said.

Food and Crop research