Reply To: Chris (access until November 15, 2014)

[Alana McGee]

Hi Chris

So I was also just talking with some Gun dog folks last night and we were discussing some of the things we discussed about pointing and that dropping off as a behavior.

Apparently, it is quite common for pointing gun dogs, for the point behavior to naturally turn into a flushing (chase) behavior over time and with experience.

And that is GREAT she stopped mid chase! fabulous!

So the topic of Pecan Truffles, and the state of the industry in general is a big one.

Innoculated farms exist in most states, even Colorado. The fact of the matter is however that most orchards/ truffieres of inoculated trees (not necessarily unintentional planting of Pecan truffle infected trees) are young and there for only just now even being in the window of starting production. Many are only a few years old.

Pecan truffles are a little different.

We don?t know how long intentionally infected Pecan truffle trees take to fruit. General guess is the same window as European species and that puts it at 5 to 12 years after planting.

There are, to my current knowledge active intentional and unintentional pecan truffle orchards all over the south and plains states (Georgia, Louisana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Florida, alabama, Indiana, the Carolinas, Arizona, Texas being a big one, California, and likely other states- those are just the ones I know of personally.)

In those places with ?orchards? for it- they are indeed predominantly on Pecan trees (Carya illinoensis) which are in the Hickory family, but also on Oak (Querqus) and hazelnut and chestnut as well.

Season will vary for Pecan truffles but generally August thru December in various states on those orchards.

Wild Pecans are a bit different and I will talk about them more in another thread. You can read more about them here: http://plantpath.ifas.ufl.edu/faculty/smith/Smith-et-al-2012-Pecan-Truffle-BW.pdf

The season for Perigords is in the winter. Dec- March, but again, most orchards are currently in the 3 year old range. They exist all over the country, and there are some productive ones, and there is a demand for qualified dogs, but working on orchards is a bit different enterprise than harvesting in the wild, with different trials and tribulations. Right now harvesting on Perigord plantations is limited, and generally limited to the Mid atlantic states (Tennessee, NC, Virginia) and the west coast Napa to BC

Burgundies/ summer truffle have been planted in many places, but most are too young to start producing. There are a few producing in North America. Their season ranges again, depending on where they are located. Truffieres in BC will have different seasonality than those in North Carolina.

There is a growing demand for qualified dogs for survey work and also soon for more harvesting/ location services.

This is a brief kind of outline, I will try to flush it out a bit further in the next day or so once I have reliable internet and more time. If you have specific questions you want to know it will be easier for me to respond.

In general the Truffiere scene in the US is its infancy, but expanding rapidly. We will see even more production this year and it will keep growing and the science has been improving dramatically. There are very few currently qualified dog/ handler teams in all of the country at this point who have the knowledge or experience harvesting on orchard like settings, but there is a big demand for them. What generally is needed are more dogs in more locations. So you being situated in Colorado is actually a really good thing. You are one of only a handful of teams developing in a multi state area where there are commercial and wild harvests.

More later!