We’re well into the 2023 season and I’d like to say we’ve had a lovely time hunting for truffle in the beautiful weather, but like the rest of New Zealand we’ve experienced more than our fair share of rain and miserable weather this season. We are lucky to have come through relatively unscathed compared to other regions but in one downpour we did have a small stream raging through
the trufferie and the dogs nearly got washed away going to investigate.
Seems every day we pick to hunt it decides to rain so the dogs and I have become seasoned wet weather hunters. It’s definitely not a glamourous event.
Despite all the rain we are harvesting some lovely truffle – probably thanks to the layers of pumice under our topsoil helping to drain the trufferie.
Following on from previous years we are continuing to track production across the trufferie and it’s been exciting to see how the spread of truffle is expanding from tree to tree and across rows.
Ted (aka Digger Dan) is learning the trade joining us most days though he has to get the dive-bombing Milo and chewing on and getting tangled in Milos lead out of his system before he’s of any use. He’s got the sniffing down pat but has developed a penchant for chomping on rotten truffle which is not pleasant later in the day.
Cross fingers we get some nice crisp days in the next few weeks both to help ripen the truffle and to put a bit of sunshine into our hunting. In the meantime the boys will rest up and conserve their energy for the next big hunt.
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