# Can Truffles Be Farmed?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-truffles-be-farmed/217969>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 9, 2003, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-truffles-be-farmed/217969 "2003-12-09T17:59:08Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-truffles-be-farmed/217969/1 "2003-12-09T17:59:08Z")

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The elusive truffle is said to be the most expensive evgetable on earth…they go for about 50 dollars per ounce. I understand that they grow on the roots of oak trees, and that you need a dog or pig to sniff them out. Given the rarity and great demand-has anybody tried farming truffles? Are farmed truffles as good as the wild ones?  
Finally, I’ve NEVER tasted a truffle-are they worth the expense? Where do you buy them?

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**Author:** ![raygirvan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ac91a4/32.png) [@raygirvan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raygirvan)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-truffles-be-farmed/217969/2 "2003-12-09T18:34:02Z")

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Can truffles be farmed: yes, and they are. See (for instance): [The truffle cultivation in France : assessment of the situation after 25 years of intensive use of mycorrhizal seedlings](http://www.mykopat.slu.se/mycorrhiza/edible/proceed/chevalier.html) and [New World Truffieres](http://www.truffletrees.com/princi.html).

“The Official Foodie Handbook” has an interesting article about how this was kept under wraps for a long time. After repeating the usual truffle mystique, it adds: “what everybody doesn’t know is that the reason peasants know where to look is that, for a long time now, the black truffle has been cultivated”. In 1982, a similar detail was exposed about the more valuable white truffle by two British journalists, Jane Grigson and Paul Levy. “Giusto Giovanetti, Professor of Mycology at Turin University, made the revelation … backed up by Francesco Tagliaferro, whose Turin firm specialises in mycorrhising the roots of young trees - infecting them with truffle spores”.