To me, the interesting part was<p>"In 2006, we filed an international patent application for the cultivation of morels in collaboration with a private patent agency. The application described, among other things, two of the most central cultivation principles which are also used today in our fully developed method for the controlled indoor cultivation of black morels, all-year-round. However, shortly after the application was approved, we decided, on the advice of the Danish Patent Directorate, to withdraw the application before it was published worldwide, as in practice it is relatively easy to circumvent a patent of this type. We are therefore now in a position where we have chosen once and for all to keep the key points of our method secret, not least because we are currently considering the commercial possibilities. This is why we are unfortunately unable to provide any more information on the cultivation process than is given on this website."<p>in combination with their description of how they and many others spent many years unsuccessfully trying to reproduce a 30 year old USA patent that also claimed an ability to cultivate morels indoors.
First linked page:<p><a href="https://vimeo.com/631188068" rel="nofollow">https://vimeo.com/631188068</a><p>Video presentation of The Danish Morel Project.<p>The morel mushroom is known as one of the world’s most coveted edible mushrooms. During the last hundred years, it has only with limited success been possible to cultivate black morel mushrooms under controlled, indoor conditions. We are therefore very pleased to announce that we finally, after many years of intensive research at the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University and the University of Copenhagen, have invented and developed a method for controlled indoor cultivation of black morel mushrooms all-year-round under well defined conditions in climate chambers. We are able to produce 4.2 kilos of first-class morels per square metre within a total cultivation period of 22 weeks, corresponding to an annual production of 10 kilos of morels per square metre. The method is so well developed, that a commercial production can be started after an appropriate automation of the cultivation process.<p>(Next link not yet seen.)
It's neat that their method seems to require a partner plant, the grass that's cultivated with the mushrooms. I wonder if they will be able to apply the same methodology to truffles?<p>There's probably bacteria involved, as well - some fungi species seem to exploit super specific niches, with super specific environmental conditions needed to spread and fruit.
It looks like morel mushrooms has been successfully farmed on a large scale in China for some time: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEwOZwkl-Ao" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEwOZwkl-Ao</a>
Huckleberries are the other thing that comes to mind in terms of a popular item that has not (AFAIK) reached a point of cultivation. If they’ve figured this out for Morels, maybe there are similar techniques for Huckleberries, as to my thinking that rich forest loam isn’t terribly different for the two…
It's so funny how they tried to patent indoor cultivation Cannabis has perfected indoor AG for years now. Its just now that other Ag industry's are waking up to it. Indoor cultivators know how to control every aspect of their environment. I'm confident a mushroom farmer could reproduce this.
Yum! The patent and intellectual property rights issues show how problematic and ineffectual our current laws are. Anyone have any thoughts as to how to equitably restructure our concepts and rights about intellectual property.
Mushrooms all taste the same to me. People go crazy "hunting" morels, keeping their locations secret, etc. I've tried them, they are nothing special.