Exciting News. You heard it here first!

It might seem like it, but I don't have a truffle obsession, honest! It's just that it's the start of the Australian truffle season and they seem to be everywhere.
Not only is the Australian truffle industry going great guns, but we may not have long to wait until we taste the first Queensland-grown truffles.

There are currently three truffieres in Queensland, two in the cooler south west and one in the hills of Maleny. The newest, just eight months old and located on a cattle farm near the town of Killarney have just put in 440 innoculated oak trees and hope in 2 or three years times to be reaping the harvest (and at around $2600 a kilo that's a rich harvest!) Truffles are a tuber that grow on the roots of an oak or hazelnut tree and Australia is sucessfully innoculating the trees with the spores of the Perigord truffle which then take around 4-5 years to grow.

Truffles being such a lucrative business, the Killarney outfit prefer not to be identified and who fair enough too. You wouldn't want to encourage truffle thieves like the poor olive grove owners who recently found their trees decimated.
The Stanthorpe mob feel the same- but while I was up there recently, I did hear of a winery who are considering diversifying into truffles and even the chef at Robert Channon Wine's new cafe has planted some on his property. The Granite Belt, with its hot summers and cold winters would seem like a good place to grow truffles, but we'll have to wait and see.

Maleny on the other hand, seems like a fairly unlikely location for a truffiere, but accountant Frank Cassells who’s involved in the truffle industry in Tasmania is hopeful that it will prove cool enough. "I’m just tiny- only 80 trees, but I’m hoping to get some return by next winter." Cassells said. He has had his trees in for three years, and so far it’s looking hopeful. By this time next year you may be able to taste Queensland's very first truffle!
If you want to read more about Australia's infant truffle industry go to I recently did a piece you can read at http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/foodandwine/