Claudio Morati 07 January 2022

Crazy weather, truffle prices soar

Meteo pazzo, il prezzo del tartufo lievita

In the 2021/2022 season, truffles reached stratospheric prices. According to Coldiretti, these were record prices, even double those of the most favorable years, recorded at the Aqualagna truffle market. The price hike was due to adverse weather conditions marked by a long period of no rainfall, because truffles develop in soil that must remain fresh and humid during the germination and maturation phases.

In the province of Brescia, those from Valtenesi, upper Garda, the morainic hills, and recently Valle Camonica are well-known.

Today, truffle is also a fashion statement, an element that characterizes a lifestyle.
But what is it really? It is a fungus that lives underground and is composed largely of water and mineral salts absorbed from the soil through the roots of the tree with which it lives in symbiosis.
Growing and developing near the roots of trees such as Pine, Holm Oak, Black Hornbeam, Hazel, Cork Oak, Turkey Oak, Domestic Pine, Mountain Lime, Pedunculate Oak, and Oak, the truffle owes its characteristics (color, flavor, and scent) precisely to the type of tree near which it developed. Its shape, however, depends on the type of soil: if soft, the truffle will be smoother; if compact, it will become gnarled and lumpy due to the difficulty of making its way through.

Truffle can also be cultivated, an incorrect term; we will use a more accurate term below, which is truffle farming. To understand if the farm is able to plant it, a precise environmental study is required, which includes a pedo-climatic and environmental assessment of the planting site, and therefore chemical-physical analyses of the soil.
The costs for setting up a plantation range from a minimum of 10,000 to 20,000 euros per hectare. Truffle farming is experiencing a period of great expansion even in the province of Brescia, but every new truffle farm needs several years before it starts producing after being established: it takes 4 to 6 years before a truffle ground begins to regularly produce truffles made in Brescia.