There are some important factors to take into consideration before you contemplate a black truffle farm. First of all, you should be located between the 40th and the 47th latitude. If you are located in close proximity to these coordinates, your farm will be ok. It does not matter if you are in the northern or southern hemisphere, as long as you are between these coordinates. The black truffle grows in the wild between these latitudes.
The next most important criteria is the type of soil your land has. The black truffle will only grow in soil that has a Ph balance of 7.0 to 8.5. Optimal range they say is Ph 7.9. You will need a laboratory that does soil analysis and take the soil samples per their instructions.
There are all types of soil preparation available today. You can apply lime to raise your soil Ph balance. Adding lime is usually done over a couple of years, depending on how much the Ph balance needs to be raised. It is a slow process but it can be done. You will need expert advice to know how much lime you will need to add to get the soil optimal for your black truffle farm. You will need to remove any trees that are in the way or that might be harboring competing micro organisms. You do not want undesirable micro organisms competing for a space on your black truffle trees roots. Even thou there will always be competing micro organisms in the soil, you want to try to keep it to a minimum. The higher the Ph balance, the less competing micro organisms but it has its draw backs, high Ph balanced soil. When the Ph balance is high, trace elements deficiencies can occur in your black truffle farm. So a foliar analysis of your truffle trees is recommended once your trees are about 5 years old. This will tell you any nutrients the tree is missing so you can correct any deficiencies.
Before planting your black truffle farm, it is always a good idea to plant wheat, barley or hops for a couple of years on the proposed truffle farm. This helps to clean the soil of any competing micro organisms. If you have wild boar in your area of the world, you will need to fence your land. There is special truffle farm fencing on the market which does not allow the boar to stick its snout into the fence and lift it up. So they can not crawl under to get to your precious black truffles. Boars are also destructive creatures, they will rip up your truffle trees if they get into your truffle farm.
About 6 months before planting your truffle trees, you will have to get a bulldozer in that has spikes about a meter ( 3 foot ) long on the back, that digs into the soil. The object of the bulldozer spiking the proposed truffle farm is to break the sub soil that repeated plowing has created about 40 centimeters ( about 18 inches) below the surface. This also helps in airing the soil and will aid in the soils drainage properties. This is also one of the most important steps in preparing a black truffle farm. It is money well spent to spike your proposed truffle farm. Once the future truffle farm has been spiked, let the land stand for a couple of months, as is. If it rains during that time, all the better.
Next on your list of things to do is to fence the land. Here in the province of Huesca, Spain, wooden posts are used in fencing the truffle farm. When you have the bulldozer spiking your land, have the driver spike the ground where the posts will be hammered into the ground. This will make the hammering of the posts into the ground easier. It is also a good idea to wait until after a good rain to fence your land. It is easier to hammer the posts into the ground in moist soil rather than hard sun baked soil.
A Black Truffle Farm
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