Why Growing White Truffles Is So Difficult | Eater

"Located in rural North Carolina, this farm is the first in the United States to successfully cultivate the bianchetto truffle (Tuber borchii vittadini) and has become the country's largest truffle operation. The team inoculates loblolly pine saplings in the greenhouse and deliberately stresses them—adjusting water, nutrients, light, temperature, and soil chemistry (especially pH)—so the trees form the necessary mycorrhizal partnership with the truffles; the first inoculated pines were planted in 2014 and produced a first harvest in 2017. Individual trees can yield up to a pound of truffles per year, and with about 550 trees per acre across multiple two-acre orchards (only roughly half fruiting annually) the farm can harvest thousands of dollars' worth of truffles in a single day and ships them nationwide. The operation also sells truffle-spore-inoculated saplings to help expand the domestic market—an approach they welcome because greater supply would mature the market—and the team predicts a slow ramp over the next 5–10 years before a larger boom. Demand sometimes outstrips supply to the point that marketing is paused to manage crowds." - Claudia Geib