Heavy rainfall in the North Island has created a challenging truffle season for Bay of Plenty producers. These have been out since early June harvesting the fungi, but wet weather has hampered progress, which has caused many truffles to rot.
Maureen and Colin Binns of Te Puke Truffles just wrapped up this year's harvest in Paengaroa. Ms Binns said extreme rainfall has had a big impact on the size of the black truffles: “The adverse weather events have really affected us quite dramatically in terms of truffles – production, size. As it's turned out, we've been able to find truffles on each of our hunts and we've been able to supply our two partner restaurants here locally, Sugo and The Trading Post. But size-wise, it's been the worst season ever.”
Producers in Western Australia were reporting another bumper season with increased demand for the lucrative fungi, partly due to a bad season in France in 2022, due to drought.
Source: stuff.co.nz