Truffles: How fungi foraging has evolved in the UK

TRUFFLES, in case you have never tried one, are highly prized underground fungal delicacies with a deep aroma and strong fragrance serving as a prelude to their taste. Earthy, musky and pungent are the best ways to describe their flavour. 

Akin to many fungi, truffles grow symbiotically on tree roots. Yet their fruiting bodies do not normally appear above ground. Over 180 species of truffle (Tuberspp) are known to science, although only about a dozen are of any commercial interest. And, to avoid any confusion and disillusion for the chocoholics amongst readers, I am not talking about confectionery, but fungi here!

Like any dealings in high-value commodities, the whole business of selling these wild nuggets is shrouded in mystery, but the prices for top-of-the-range truffles for gourmet use can be mind-boggling. Species, size, season and demand all influence the sums paid for truffles. Back in July 2022, a kilo of black truffles in Italy went for €1,350.

While traditionally thought of as an activity associated with rural France and Italy, this culinary delicacy can be unearthed in our local woodlands too. Here the wild truffle foraging season for the three main target species typically extends from late summer to early winter, or from late July or early August until January or February, depending on the truffle species in question and the fickle local weather conditions.

Here’s a breakdown of the foraging season for the three commonest truffle species found wild in the UK:

The summer truffle (Tuber aestivum) – As its common name indicates, this is one of the first truffles to ripen, and its foraging season kicks off in late summer, usually from August until late autumn or early winter.

The bianchetto truffle (T. borchii) – Following the summer truffle, the bianchetto starts to appear in late summer or early autumn, around August to September, and can still be discovered until late autumn, often until December.

The black or Perigord truffle (T. melanosporum) – This is the last of the three to mature, and its harvesting season kicks off in late autumn or early winter, typically around November through to the New Year.

Historically there were a handful of semi-professional truffle hunters in the UK.

The practice is now gaining PYO followers, as is the boom in foraging for say wild edible fungi and garlic. Some people claim to be able to detect the smell of underground truffles, notably when the aroma gets stronger as the buried truffles ripen and emit a powerful scent reminiscent of nuts, earth and sometimes garlic.

But the olfactory prowess of the canine nose is far superior to that of we mere humans, and specially trained truffle hounds are invaluable – and preferred to pigs which tend to snuffle the truffles. In fact, the poodle-looking Lagotto Romagnolo, from Italy, is the only purebred dog in the world recognised as a specialised truffle searcher. 

Perigord summer truffles (Tuber aestivum), known as the black diamond, discovered poking out of the ground. (Image: Getty Images)

While in France and Italy, truffles change hands for thousands of euros per kilo, they can be found growing naturally in Britain too, if you know where to look.

The best places to search in the UK countryside are often closely kept secrets, but here are some clues. The fungi tend to grow best in warm, well-drained, south-facing beech, oak, birch and hazel woods, on chalk or limestone. Particularly favourable sites in Britain include the Chilterns and North and South Downs, as well as Hampshire, Wiltshire and westwards into Dorset, and northwards to the Lincolnshire Wolds. Moving westwards, the woodlands of Wales offer promising truffle-hunting grounds, with a diverse range of dominant host tree species like oak and hazel. 

Although they normally only develop below ground, in wetter climatic conditions they may break the surface and be visible to the eagle-eyed. As with a number of plants, the chemicals in spores released by ripening truffles somehow inhibit the growth of other nearby vegetation to create a ring of bare earth or bald patches or truffle circles around ‘infected’ trees – not to be confused with the rings roe deer may cause during rutting activity. 

There’s no guarantee you may strike it lucky on your hunt, but a few restrictions come into play, particularly around the question of who owns wild truffles. 

The legal and moral frameworks for collecting such wild-grown organisms is complex. Some rare plants enjoy full legal protection, with commercial collecting generally frowned on, and local bylaws may apply, as in the New and Epping Forests and wildlife reserves.

Under the Theft Act in England – where most wild truffles lurk – it is illegal to collect plant material without the landowner’s permission, and then only for personal use, but the situation is fraught with pitfalls.

For centuries, truffles were gathered exclusively in their natural habitat in European countries such as Spain, Italy and France, where they occur unaided.

But over the past 40 years, truffle production has experienced a remarkable global expansion, thanks to cultivation techniques that have given rise to plantations or orchards known as ‘truffières’.

In the 1980s, the French first experimented with inoculating the roots of host whips such as hazels and oaks with truffle spores, but it was far-thinking New Zealand go-getters who really took matters in hand. There are over 200 growers there nowadays, using hazel and English oaks for the growing stocks, although there has been some limited success with truffle-laced conifer roots. 

Yet efforts to cultivate the most expensive type of truffle – the Italian white (T. magnatum) – so far seem elusive, but then nobody in their right commercial mind who manages to grow them that way is likely to divulge their technique. 
Propagating truffles has also taken root worldwide in just a short period of time.

The result of a successful truffle hunt. (Image: Gerard LACZ)

Today, the United States of America, China, Greece and Turkey as well as countries across the Southern Hemisphere — Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Chile and Argentina — have emerged as leading producers of the famed fungi. Those places enjoy added commercial advantage as these buried treasures with a shortish shelflife can be harvested off-season and airlifted to the old world at eye-watering prices.

At home here in the UK, a growing number of pioneer truffle orchards or truffières planted this century use hazel or oak as the parent host trees. So if you fancy trying your luck in the dark but developing art of cultivating these exotic fungi, a number of groundbreaking companies in the UK offer stock and guidance on establishing orchards, cultivation, marketing and training for your very own truffle hounds. Springer spaniels are a favourite breed. But please be patient.

Results take time and can be hit and miss. 

At best there is a gestation of some five years post-planting the inoculated whips before any marketable truffles can be harvested. That possible rapid payback may seem the blink of an eye in timber terms, but there is no guarantee of success. Yet the potential rewards for this innovative form of agroforestry are lucrative and eye watering. 

As a safety net, if all else fails and with hazel as a host, you still have a short-term fall-back of nuts and coppice products. If you like, this form of agroforestry could be thought of as hedging your bets or a double whammy.