Soils tests

[Holly Martin]

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Different topic– soil testing rather than testing for mycorrhizae.  Many mysteries here.  If you can point us to resources, many thanks.  If not, maybe this is a good topic for a webinar.

1. Should we be concerned in soil testing with any other elements of the normal complete ag soil testing, besides pH?  If so, what and why.  For instance, boron deficiencies can affect fruiting patterns of grapes…..anything similar to watch for with truffles?  We have heard that the high pH helps eliminate competing fungi, but that’s about the extent of our truffle specific knowledge of soil chemistry.

2.  Is there any soils service that can advise with respect to truffles as a crop?  We have been using A&L labs, which is big in Oregon/California AG and they are completely unfamiliar.  They understand how to make the trees grow but that is it.

3. How often/at what stage of orchard development is it important to test.

4.  How to read/understand soil reports and their components (although I understand they are not necessarily uniform) would be of help as well.

Thanks.  Holly Martin TrufNoire

[Fabrice Caporal]

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Hello Holly,

I have been asking similar questions since we have started and the best answer I have received was “I don’t know”… There are some data for European conditions but those don’t really transfer to us. They live on calcareous soils and we often recourse to amending with lime. The soil type will directly impact the ability for the plant to absorb the nutrients.

We don’t have enough data. We have relatively few producing orchards, and many of us are resisting sharing the little information we have. So much so that some are even trying to turn this confusion into a lucrative advantage and provide advices only under the veil of non disclosure agreements. I think these short sighted approaches are counter productive are destined to fail. Who is to tell that there assumptions are correct? Because of the secrecy there findings will not properly peered reviewed and will derive from a smaller pool of information.

This is why efforts like the North American Truffle Survey Database are so important. Right now most of us are shooting in the dark. Only with appropriate information sharing we may discover why some of us hit the target, and what elements are actually relevant to a producing Orchard.

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