Truffle Valley: Kovu loves proving people wrong!!
I have been working with Truffle Valley for the last few years. They found their first truffle when the trees were 3.5 years in 2021. Amazing! Last year we went over to do a truffle dog training session/assessment. Tessa passed and earned her certification of competency.
I have been working with Truffle Valley for the last few years. They found their first truffle when the trees were 3.5 years in 2021. Amazing!
Last year we went over to do a truffle dog training session/assessment. Tessa passed and earned her certification of competency.
Unfortunately the challenges of the wet 2022 year didn’t escape Truffle Valley and they weren’t able to get any truffle, even though the soil ph conditions and trees were perfect. You just can’t change the weather.
Quite dejected about last year, Joan wasn’t expecting anything this year as she couldn’t even do her annual rip line/re inoculation because it was too wet to use the tractor. She didn’t think we would need markers but I brought some anyway just in case.
In typical Kovu fashion he loves to prove people wrong!!! He found a location on the second row of trees, and when I smelt the soil I did a double take!! Wow thats ripe truffle aroma!!!
“Ahh Joan, there is a ripe truffle right here!!!!” I say, as I point to the location Kovu showed me.
She was lost for words. There were a lot of high fives and hugs to be sure. We marked the location and resisted the urge to dig it out straightaway. We wanted to run her dogs over the area too.
We kept going along the rows. We ended up using almost all the markers I had!!! Should of brought more!! We found a 126g rotten one and another location Kovu was certain about but I couldn’t smell anything. A little scratch of the soil and what do you know another huge unripe truffle. We careful covered it up and we will wait for it to be ripe before harvesting. It may be in 4/5 weeks time. Kovu can mark unripe truffle locations very early due to his exceptional sense of smell.
Taking Rita and Tessa to the row with the known ripe truffle is a excellent way to assess a dog, as we know the exact location so we can reward exactly at the source. They did very well and both alerted to the location. We will be returning there in a few weeks to fine tune their search techniques with the custom made advanced truffle training session.
Well done Truffle Valley!! All your hard work is paying off!!!
The truffle looked small…. little did we know…
