Aidan Curtis
THE South East may become a viable source of truffles with a popular tourist farm finding dozens hidden in its orchard that was previously written off.
Mount Gambier / Berrin’s Echo Farm has confirmed its truffle orchard has begun yielding results nearly 15 years after it was planted.
Echo Farm’s co-owners Anthea and Damian Harrison found signs of truffle earlier in the year, but had to play the waiting game to see if any would reach maturity.
After calling around for expert advice, the pair was told the orchard had been searched as recently as 2018 and would be unlikely to ever yield good quality truffles.
Despite that, they soon found edible truffles starting to poke through the dirt in the orchard and called in canine experts for a closer look.
They invited Adelaide Hills Truffle Dogs co-owners Dean Poletta and Warren Rogers, along with some friends of the farm, to their orchard on Monday, July 17 for an unofficial truffle hunt.
Mr Poletta, Mr Rogers and their team of trained truffle dogs had a hit within moments of entering the orchard, and the truffles kept rolling in from there.
Mr Rogers described the day’s yield as “unbelievable”, especially considering it was the first time truffles were discovered on the property.
“You go to a new farm, sometimes we might spend two or three years at a farm and not get anything,” he said.
“To come here and the first tree, I think, we had a hit from the dog.
“It’s good for us, even better for the owners, and it’s great for the dogs – they’ll get switched on straight away if they know they can find truffle.”
Within three hours, the dogs had found a “commercially viable” amount of truffle and Mr Rogers said there was likely more to be found deeper below the surface.
“Being only a three month seasonal thing from June to August, there’s more out there and they’ll probably get an even bigger haul next time,” he said.
“It’s a very new industry in South Australia, a lot of the farms aren’t producing commercial amounts just yet, but they will over the next few years – that’s where the industry is really going to take off.”
Ms Harrison said she and her family were feeling extremely blessed to have a potentially viable truffle farm in their backyard after only buying the farm a year ago.
“We walked in without expectation,” Ms Harrison said.
“They [Mr Poletta and Mr Rogers] said usually it takes an hour to do half an orchard, but an hour in and they’re still halfway down row one flagging truffles, that’s amazing.”
Ms Harrison said there is a lot of work to do now to build on the sustainability of growing truffle at Echo Farm, but it was a good problem to have.
“The truffle orchard is viable, where do we go from here?,” she said.
“How do we now keep it viable, how do we invest wisely in it?
“All these other areas need to be explored and that’s more work, but it’s good work.”
The Harrisons will monitor their flagged truffles over the coming days to track their progress as they ripen, and have invited the Truffle Dogs back in August for a second hunt.
