Growing – Yarra Valley Truffles: Blog

1511 gram truffle!

Truffle #348, first spotted on 22 February 2016 in the first wave of covering near surface truffles, I had no idea of the actual size until late last Thursday when I was protecting truffles against the 21 Celsius day. The ripening aroma’s being released made Lani mark the truffle enthusiastically, and I/we started digging… deeper, … and deeper. Some 45 minutes later it was finally extracted from the ground. It was then cleaned, and air dried overnight.

I’ve had a lot of large truffles this year, many 4 to 5 hundred grams, with some noteable specimens including 630g & 800g. But this one weighed in at 1511 grams!

1511g truffle — 1511 gram T. melanosporum

1511g truffle tree — The hazel tree, 1511g truffle, Stuart & Lani

Being a Thursday, it was a bit late in the week for marketing, and none of my regular customers could handle a truffle of this size. Other buyers could have been found, but there’s been a lot of “we’ll call you” responses from restaurants this year, so I decided I’d rather preserve it instead.
5 grams does a bottle of truffle vodka, so it’s big enough to infuse 210 litres (44gallon drum), although it will more likely be used for future promotional activities.

1511g Truffle in hand — Truffle & Truffiére

It’s certainly more satisfying to be able to keep (and show) it, than simply be saying “I once had a truffle that was…”

Why is truffle so cheap?

A general summation of market factors as I am aware of them.

Growing Truffles

Like any farm industry, there is a lot of support work in an orchard once it reaches commercial production. Vineyards do not simply harvest grapes a few weeks a year, nor are truffles in Australia simply foraged in the wild!
In both instances, without a lot of support work in the months before harvest, only a fraction of the crop would ever survive to reach the table.

For myself, the support work, on top of the harvest season itself in 2015, was ~1200hours, basically a full time job for eight months, {and should have been more}.
This equates to about 30 hours per kg of saleable truffle,

Admittedly, a lot of the work is of my own making, with a substantial amount of research being conducted alongside the maintenance. My insistence on being spray free also increases the workload. Finally, being very particular during harvest to achieve fully ripe truffles also adds a few additional hours per kg.
But even if I were to join the chemical maintenance club, and lowered my harvest standards, I doubt the work would drop below an average of 15hrs/kg. Other growers I’ve spoken with have concurred that 10-15 hours per kg is a realistic summation.

Simply put, for a grower, this means the price received for 1 to 2 kg of truffle is your weekly wage for 8 months, and the remaining 4 months is unpaid or other income (don’t give up your day job, just take 8 mths off per year…)

Continue reading “Why is truffle so cheap?”

Autumn tasks, remove spoiled truffles and blackberry seedlings

From the first surface truffles appearing end of February 2016, it has been a continual process inspecting & protecting them with additional soil cover. With more truffle eruptions each week, this will continue until season starts, but will soon slow as the tree’s shut down for winter. Without protection, over 80% of the surface truffles would not survive until harvest time. A portion are forming at reasonable depths, but can still become exposed to damage through soil cracks.

spoiled trufs & blackberries — Autumn tasks, remove spoiled truffles and blackberry seedlings

Six weeks worth, 7.5kg (in bags) of spoiled truffle has been removed so far, which surprisingly is a cause for celebration! It’s a bit less than last year, with more than double the truffles located, so a significant reduction in spoilage… so far. From past experience, about the same amount can be expected to spoil between now and the end of the season.

Causes will vary widely from damage by fungi, insects and animals. Frost and heat damage can also occur, and they can even be squeezed by tree roots, or suffocate depending on soil structure and rainfall.