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Welcome to the forum Mel. Let me copy here the answer I gave you on email.
To my knowledge we don’t have members from Alabama, but we do have members in Mississippi, Tennessee and Georgia, so I would assume that you could probably grow truffles in Alabama. There are many different truffle species to consider and my understanding is that the Pecan Truffles are endemic to your region.
Please keep us posted on the progress for that research. Your pruning strategy will vary significantly depending on the tree species, available equipment and location of your orchard.
On our side we have decided to prune the trees to develop a central leader and keep the tree “aerated”. We mostly have English Oaks (Q. robur) and they are growing fast. Many of our 4 year old trees are past the 20 feet mark. We are pruning to raise the canopy as well. Because we are planted 18′ apart the tree still have lots of room before they touch each other. Because the canopy is quite open we don’t have dark shadows, and we think that because of the increase heat we are experiencing in Lake County (this year 14 days over 100 in July and 10 in August) a little of shade might actually be beneficial. For now we are pruning by hand, but once the tree reach a certain size we probably will prune them mechanically.
Example of before and after pruning of a 3 year old tree
Also see a series of short videos posted on our Instagram on the pruning of a multi trunk individual (make sure your turn on the sound).
I did plant this mixture last year with various success.
It looks like the grasses did not like it much… The most successful flowers were the Lacy Phacelia and the California Poppy. All the other flowers appeared only anecdotally. To note, this might be a totally different observation next year as some of those plants are biennials or perennials.
The problem with flowers is that they are very expensive, so you will have to hit a compromise. To try to save in cost we have chosen to promote self reseeding. We did is to not mow the center of the lanes until the end of June to give a chance for the cover crop to go to seed.
The challenge with that approach is that it got quite wildly and at the end we were concerned with exposure to wildfires. Toward the end it was also getting hard to work out gopher activity as the growth (including the local volunteer) was over 4′ tall.
The advantage is that it saved us at least two mowing of these areas which resulted in less compaction, less labor and less gas. We have noticed a significant (not measured) increase in bird population and we were very happy to see the multitude of pollinators.
The success of your seed mix is directly correlated with your soil. As you know we have a wide variety of soil type in our orchard and we have witnessed a very diverse plant populations throughout. Going from spots with zero germination to some areas that looked like hundreds of plants were thriving.
As for the question regarding the nitrogen fixing plants I have received mixed feedback. Ground cover is used in “standard” farming to replenish the soil nitrogen level and other nutrients, so to promote better successive crops. My understanding of the use of cover crop in a truffier is different.
We have decided to not include Nitrogen fixing plants, but I don’t have a solid argument for or against. I have read that it could be detrimental for truffle growth if the soil is well irrigated and too rich. There is a THEORY that stipulate that the trees tolerate the “truffle tax” on their sugar because the trees needs the truffle to absorb nutrients and water from the soil and if the soil is too rich then the tree can thrive without the help of the truffles and thus would reject the truffle. However there are other papers showing the importance of soil nutrients in the successful mycorrhiza development. Which throws away the first argument.
Some have argued that the cover crop may even compete with the trees, however I believe that our cultivation practices mitigate that risk. We are growing truffles, not trees. We have seeded the cover crop in the middle of the rows only and 4 feet away from the trees (at least while they are young, later on the brule will take care of this). Because the cover crop is mulched back in place we are not depleting the soil of nutrients and in effect we are increasing the amount of organic matter in the soil and improving carbon fixation.
In the end I have decided to use cover crops for these reasons: Increase biodiversity in the orchard, protect the soil from erosion and direct exposure to the sun, limit compaction of the soil. The increased biodiversity will promote the development of a more resilient and balanced orchard which should result in being more productive. The protection of the soil from the elements will help with the development of the biodiversity all the way to the top soil where the truffles grow. Compaction will be mitigated by both shielding the top soil from the droplets and the roots working the soil texture (this is why it is important to choose species based on their root system as well).
For this year we may decide to adjust the mixture but we will certainly do another round of seeding.
Early spring sparsed germination
A more dense germination
Later on in the season
Cover crop in the middle of the rows and soil cultivated in the tree line
At this point I did not factor the truffiere senescence. What I call re-inoculation is all the practices to increase the spore bank in the truffiere, truffle traps being one of them. Some argue that in our conditions it is a must for triggering production.
For our first re-inoculation experiment that we conducted last year, we used 4g of truffle per tree as a starting point. I don’t know if this was the optimum quantity (I think we erred on the heavy side) and I would love some feedback from others as well. We’ve conducted our first experiment with re-inoculation on three different rows with different formulas and we will see if it makes a difference. Once we will finalize on the substrate formula we will conduct experiments with the amount of truffles. Too many variables to handle at once.
To the direct cost of fresh truffle and DNA testing you need to add the cost of the substrate, which will depends on your formula, and the cost of labor and maybe the cost of the equipment you would use for the application. This adds up quite rapidly!
Hello,
I have been using the services of
Inga Meadows
Extension Plant Pathologist – Vegetables & Herbaceous Ornamentals
NC State University Mountain Research Station.Here page with instruction can be found in their blog
She is also part of the Expert Advisory Group and mad a presentation last September on the topic. View Presentation
I have also been recommended the services of
Efren Cazares
Mycology Consultant, PhD
MycoRoots (http://www.mycoroots.com)but have not yet used his services.
Elise, tractor size is important to consider. When using earth engaging implements it is important to have a bigger tractor as it allows you to use wider implements saving you time and trips up and down the rows. However you also have to consider weight. Compaction is your enemy in the truffière so you need to make sure you are using the proper tires, that you limit the use of the tractor as much as you can. One of the use of the tractor could be for mowing, but this year I found that using a zero turn mower to be a significant improvement because of its maneuverability and its light weight. Please view my tractor post in the Equipment Q&A forum and be on the lookout for a zero turn mower review shortly.
Also, consider getting your tractor used. Unlike car you assess the age of a tractor by its hours of use, rather than by its model year. You can find older tractor with few hours for a good discount on Craig’s list.
For the past 2 years we have been using the Davis Ventage Go Pro2 weather station with an EnviroMonitor Gateway and 2 nodes each connected to 60 cm Sentek drill and drop sensors to monitor soil moisture content (% water) and temperature every 10 cm down to 60 cm. The weather station is fully autonomous, with no requirements for power or internet connection.
I subscribe to the WeatherLink 15 minute update so I get data report every 15 minutes through the cellular network. I also set up my system to import all the weather data into a spreadsheet for analysis and historical records.
Because of the high variability of the soil type in our site, it has been very challenging to reliably translate the water content into water potential data. This year we have added METER Teros 21 sensors to the EnviroMonitor nodes to remove the soil type from the equation.
Finally, we have a pressure switch sensor to record when irrigation is turned on and off.
We have experienced a few ups and down but Davis technical support has been very diligent and responsive in helping us solve the problems.
This solution was quite pricey but was essential for our situation. We have two nodes placed at opposite side of our soil type spectrum (loamy clay – sandy loam) so that we can have a better understanding of the soil condition. We are not leaving on the truffière so the weather station and the sensor are our eyes to help us decide when to turn on irrigation remotely.
Also you can’t improve what you can’t measure. We are storing the data with the intention that when we start producing truffles we will be able to to conduct irrigation pattern tests and see the impact on production.
Because of cost we have limited the number of nodes, but once we will start producing we probably add a few more nodes.
We would get a similar setup without any hesitation, but would probably change a couple things. We would probably not use the Sentek sensors again, or if we would really want to monitor the multiple depth, we would take only one of the shorter (30 cm) sensor to save money, and use Teros 21 sensor in the other locations. The other change would be that instead of a pressure switch sensor, we would use a pressure gage sensor (the switch tells you when water is on or off, the gage gives you pressure readings) so that we could better assess the flow at the sprinkler to have a better measure of the amount of water given to each tree (we have been struggling with reconciling theoretical flows with measured flows).
