Italian Truffle Disaster Due to Hot and Dry Weather

The 2022 Italian harvest of black summer truffles experienced a very bad season due to the hot and dry weather this year. The lack of rainfall caused the soil to dry out while the sustained high temperatures did not allow the soil to cool down during the night, resulting in above desired minimum temperatures for truffle growth. Truffles prefer growing in areas with cool winters, damply warm springs and hot summers with intermittent annual rainfall, conditions that were absent in 2022. Conditions for the autumn white truffle are not promising either as rainfall will collide with a very hard soil which is difficult to infiltrate and moisten. Truffles normally grow at a depth of about twenty centimeters so sufficient and sustained rainfall is needed to reach the required depth for irrigation.