Local farmer is a real fun guy.

Somewhere in the Willamette Valley, a truffle farm planted in 2000 is about to produce the first harvest of French black truffles in our state. A farmer identified only as "Peter" planted several varieties of hazelnut trees six years ago from seedlings grown at the USDA Germplasm Repository near Corvallis. After babying the crop along, improving the acidity of the earth by dumping tons of lime on the soil, injecting the roots with fungal solution and watering during the local dry season, Peter is now on the lookout for a truffle-sniffing dog to help him find his expensive little fungi, which should net him roughly $1,000 per pound on the retail market.

Charles Lefevre, a forest mycologist and nursery owner in Eugene, is selling tree seedlings and instructions in cultivating truffles to farmers all over Oregon in an attempt to add another local delicacy to the region. Oregon is already known for dungeness crab, chinook salmon, pinot noir, marionberries, Tillamook cheese and Harry & David's apples and pears ... why not truffles?

I think I'll stick to the rum-laden chocolate kind, however. Mmmmm.