You will see this section on most pages of the Wiki, with notes about extra information required to make this a definitive entry. It could have contentious areas (things possibly changing with research) and some ideas for improvements, or suggestions for having sub-wiki pages added eg. “It would help to have photographs of the truffle varieties here”.
This is an illustration you’ll find in most Truffle Growing texts. Usually it is shown as a single variety, here we’ve over-layed Tuber melanosporum, Tuber aestivum and Tuber borchii. Different varieties of truffles suit different soils. There’s often an overlap and some variation can be made within soil types, with increasing drainage by deep ripping, adding crushed rock etc. If you’ve seen where your soil texture sits on the Texture Triangle page (sorry that’s a members only link), see here where that sits with the varieties that are commonly available from our nurseries, and below, one that we hope isn’t.
Remember, these were graphed from the types of soils where wild truffles of these varieties are found in Europe. If we collect enough data on Australian soils we may create our own overlays but there are some things we know are ‘truffle truths’, eg. heavy clay soil forces truffles to the surface and retains water which encourages rot.
An (intended) outcome of this is to alert you to the possibilities of growing multiple varieties in your truffière. Or if you can’t (silty clay for example doesn’t suit ‘bianchetto’). You will still have to raise the pH up to 7.5-8.00, which is an easier task in the loam soils than it is for clay heavy soils. There will often be areas on your land that suit one or other varieties better. Work with your soil.
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Missing Tuber brumale? Historically, before we could DNA test our inoculum to be sure it has only one variety, brumale entered the country. Even now, those nurseries that are producing trees which are untested and will almost certainly have cross-contamination. It suits almost all soil types, which is why it can out-compete and take over an existing plantation. It’s almost impossible to remove so you either grow it as a difficult to sell sideline (at a lower price), until it overtakes your melansporum and becomes your main crop.
More information
In a land of acronyms you’ll need another, see the CSIRO ASRIS (Australian Soil Resource Information System map. Use their Viewer and turn on only the suitable soil types with lower clay content. There is an interactive website that explains the soil classifications used down the side as layers in that ARIS map, here on the CSIRO Australian Soil Classification site. See The Classification tab.
Note the red areas of these maps are Kastanozems soil which have a naturally high pH (7.4). These soils may well require little liming other than to kill the competing mycorrhizas, and no ongoing ‘top-ups’. (Which is not much use if you already have chosen your property). Here’s an example of the maps that are are included as layers in our Treasure map (sigh, sorry that’s another members only link).
Resources used for this page
The preference areas of the chart were taken from Taming the Truffle Hall, Brown and Zambonelli 2007. The map images are from the CSIRO ASRIS website