Does anyone know if it is possible to cultivate Boletus edulis (an edible mushroom)?
I’ve been surfing but can’t find anything relevant.
Thanks
Unfortunately, no, it is not possible. Or at least not possible in any consistent, sustained way. I believe the boletes are all ectomycorrhizal ( i.e. they grow as symbiotes of various plants, in this case certain trees ) and farming mycorrhizal mushrooms has so far stymied science. By contrasts the cultivatable mushrooms are saprobes, i.e. they grow on decaying matter organic matter. So oyster mushrooms can be grown on any woody material, including rools of damp toilet paper.
It’s a pity, though. I LOVE Boletus edulis :).
- Tamerlane
I have no information on that particular variety but there are some sizable mushroom growing establishments near here.
They grow them like they are going out of style.
It might take a bit of research to determine the proper conditions for growth.
I have siginificant amounts of information on that particular variety in my kitchen’s cupboard 
. I’ve been told that my eldest brother recently gathered a lot more infos that I intend to assimilate soon. 
As ** Tamerlane ** noted, they can’t be currently grown.
How the hell do you find them before the worms do? Every Boletus I’ve ever seen is full of them - they’re actually insect larva of some type, I believe.
You go where you know/suspect they will be growing when you know/suspect they will be growing (sunny weather after some rain during the previous days, ideally) so you’ll pick them up when they’re still young and healthy. Normally, only older mushrooms are worm infested (at least in my neck of the woods). They also tend to be water-soaked, etc… hence though larger, generally not a very interesting find.
Also, you can remove the worm-infested part (that should be the “feet” of the mushroom, I don’t know the english word for it), and eat the worm-free “head”.
I picked some ceps the other day, but they were riddled throughout with insect larvae (not just the stalk, the cap and pores too) - perhaps this is just something more common north of the channel, although I have also collected good ones in the past - some years seem better than others, so insect attack might be cyclical or perhaps made worse by certain kinds of weather.
Anyway, you can cultivate Boletus Edulis, but you’d need a bit of suitable mixed open woodland/ to do it (and they would probably be found growing in such a situation already). Mature fruiting bodies continue to release spores for a while after being picked (as may be demonstrated by leaving one pore-side-down on a piece of paper overnight - making a spore print) - if you collect a few mature specimens, ideally from a few different locations, and leave them to drop spores in an area of suitable woodland, it’s possible (although by no means certain) that you could get them to start growing there.
Well, yeah, but that’s not really cultivation in any real sense. It might work. It also might not. And the yield could be anything from a bounty to absolutely nothing and everything in between, with no predictability from year to year. At that point, might as well just go pick them in the wild :).
- Tamerlane
Well this helps. Any info/links to what their prefered conditions are? To maximize the odds so to speak? Prefered trees they like to…uh… symbiositize, symbo…symbia… bond with? 
Girlfriend loves the things, so thought I’d try growing some for her.