Tom Eades, Black Cat Truffles 4/5/2023 Gallery

This week we were all enchanted by Tom Eades and his talk on truffle farming at his farm Black Cat Truffles. Tom enlightened us with information that truffles are a fungi and therefore not a plant or an animal but somewhere in between. Uniquely, however, they produce pheromones that can affect other animals, whereas pheromones are only supposed to be produced by animals. Tom's truffle farm was set up about 15 years ago with trees and irrigation. The farm doesn't only produce truffles but also promotes agri-tourism by preparing meals with truffle for patrons to enjoy, organising hunts and tours. This summer saw close to 400 people participate in the farm's agri-tourism.

Tom grows two types of truffle - a summer variety which is not considered the pinnacle of the truffle world,but its the most used truffle because it grows very well, and the winter variety, which is top tier and very expensive. He has 50 trees growing the summer truffle and 1000 trees growing the winter truffle on the farm. The trees were infected with the spores 15 years ago when the farm was established and here infects them every year by grinding up roughly 10 kg of truffles and sticking them back into the root systems.

Tom uses his dogs, Lottie and Winston, a Lagotto Romagnolo and an Australian Shepherd, respectively,to find the truffles (and not pigs as you might have seen on television) as these breeds are well known for their truffle sniffing abilities. Tom finished his talk by informing us that this year Australia will be the second biggest producer of black perigord truffle in the world, because France is having a bad year. However,Spain is always number one.