The economy is hard these days, with prices of food and living rising, everyone wants to make the most of their time and resources, but what if you could make money on a tree in your yard? Several specific trees can be host to a rare type of fungus, a truffle, that forms a symbiotic relationship with the roots of a tree. Truffles are a luxury food that can sell for thousands of dollars a pound, it is used in restaurants to give the guests a unique and fragrant food experience. Typically, growing a truffle requires a lot of land to grow the trees on and a specific type of tree to grow the truffles, primarily oak trees, but there are thousands of oak trees in people’s yards that could host a truffle and you could make money off of your healthy oak tree every year.
The process is as follows: you take a picture of the tree in your yard on the app or upload it to the website, the health and species compatibility will be evaluated and determined if it will be a viable host, once the tree is approved the tree is inoculated by making a small cut in the trees roots and brushing truffle spores on the cut and then bandaging it up with grafting putty. Once the tree is inoculated it will take several years to produce a truffle, but you will receive and annual amount of money for letting the company use your tree even if truffles don’t form.
Under most situations, the inoculation process does not harm the tree, however there is a possibility that the cut could allow pathogens to enter or some of the tree roots could be damaged trying to harvest the truffles, but what is most likely is that the tree will remain healthy and the soil would only be disrupted to harvest the truffles once a year. It is like having a renter on your property without all the fuss.