Growing truffle

Growing truffles: you can do it but it’s not that easy.

The so-called ‘tartuf farming’ is one of the most difficult crops ever and does not guarantee certain results. In Italy we have tried to grow truffles more or less since the mid-80s, with disparate results: we have had good productions but also total failures. The technique of growing truffles is still in a fairly experimental state, but many efforts are being made to learn more about the biology of these mushrooms and make their cultivation rational.

Quite good results have been received from the attempts to grow:

Black Perigord truffle

Scorzone truffle

Bianchetto Truffle

First step, the soil analysis

We start from the ground: everyone is fine, except the marshy ones, areas above 1000 meters high and the sandy areas. It is important to perform an evaluation of the parameters, checking particle size, ph, humus, phosphorus, carbonate, nitrogen. If it is suitable, it will be possible to plant small micorized trees, or infested with truffle spores. Better to do it in the summer and on certified plants. Linden, hazelnut and oak for the fine white, beech, lob and oak for the Scorzone.

Choose the right combination plant-tuffle: we must not forget that each truffle lives in symbiosis with particular types of plants, which, however, should also be chosen according to the climatic characteristics of the area where cultivation is about to be implanted.

Buying certified ‘mycorized’ plants: to create a truffle it is essential to use plants, the roots of which have already been colonized by the spores of the truffles you want to plant. This delicate procedure is carried out in specialized nurseries, which must be turned to to avoid nasty surprises.

Once you have come into possession of the seedlings, you have to dedicate yourself to the actual plants.

Growing truffles means arming yourself with patience.

Before planting the purchased plants, you must prepare the soil that will accommodate them in the best way. This is usually done:

The soil must be well ploughed.

All plant and shrub residues must be removed.

Larger stones must be eliminated, which would prevent a harmonious development of the truffle.

Once the plants have been planted (preferably towards the end of the summer period), the soil must continue to be cared for and irrigated, especially in the early days, and special attention will be paid to the elimination of all the weed vegetation, which would remove nourishment from the plants with which the truffles will develop in symbiosis.

If all the steps have been followed in the right way, and the plants purchased have been well micorized, with a little luck they will be able to start collecting the first truffles after about 7–10 years.

As you have read, the times are far from short and even the results are often uncertain. This is one of the reasons why truffle cultivation is struggling to take off, even though a lot of attempts and research has been made in recent times.

So, having to answer the main question of this article, namely whether growing truffles is possible, the answer is yes, some species of truffles can be grown, but truffle farming is still a fairly complicated undertaking, in which several factors come into play, more or less controllable by humans, and the outcome of which is not guaranteed.

In our farm

Truffle cultivation has allowed us to plant many new plants.Pine, oack trees hazelnut trees, black hornbeam trees and lots of synergical plants as lavander and mediterranean cistus in our field creating an association between roots under the soil so as to develop hypogeum environment suitable for truffle formation and in the maintime expand our biodiversity.

We will show you our future rich forest by explaining the qualities of the plants and showing how Rufy our 4-legged seeker will twist the small scented nuggets.

We will explain to you the morphology of the territory in which we find ourselves and make you understand how important the truffle is for these areas that have now become a nature reserve.

Well yes, one of man’s greatest friends, he is undoubtedly also the most valuable help that a truffle maker can have in the exhausting search for truffles. The truffle dog is the real actor, the real protagonist of the research, who together with his conductor, forms an indivisible couple.