About US
Our Company
This site is essential reading for:
Our courses are being designed in a logical sequence so participants may work through the entire learning process at their own pace.
We provide research updates, industry videos and articles of interest to growers and enthusiasts.
Our Philosophy
We aim to bring together all current information on truffle farming, making it easier to understand and accessible to all.
We believe that to continually advance the industry, the provision of quality education and information sharing is essential.
Our Founder
The TruffleGrowing.com website was developed by Noel Fitzpatrick, Australia’s leading truffle farming consultant and industry trainer.
Noel is a passionate advocate for continual learning in the industry. He has a strong belief in maintaining environmentally friendly practices and is always developing greater efficiencies in the truffle farming operations for more sustainable and profitable outcomes for his clients.
Noel is currently the leading consultant in his home country of Australia where he has developed more than 100 projects spanning across all six states.
International Collaborators
Marcos began to focus on mycorrhizas after graduating in Biology at the University of Barcelona, Spain in 1994. His main study area was to develop new techniques to inoculate truffles and other edible mycorrhizal mushrooms (Lactarius delicosus and Boletus edulis) directly onto mature trees. This process was named as Mycoforest Technology®.
In 1998 Marcos, together with two colleagues from the University, created Micología Forestal & Aplicada (MF & A at micofora.com), a private research centre specialising in truffles. MF & A now has truffle projects in the five continents.
In 2006, as a project for the Government of Andalucía, Spain, Marcos wrote quality standards for the certification of truffle infected trees. In 2007 he also wrote a technical truffle guidebook for the Spanish Government: Morcillo M., Moreno B., Pulido E., Sánchez M. “Manual de truficultura Andalusia. Ed. Gypaetus y Consejería de Medio Ambiente. Junta de Andalucía.” pp. 176.
MF & A also specialise in technology transfer, and so leads licensed projects abroad to create nurseries for the production of truffle and saffron milk cap infected trees with nurseries running in Spain, USA, Chile, México and South Africa.
In 2007, Marcos and his partners established their own truffle orchard of more than 4,000 trees inoculated with Tuber melanosporum and Tuber borchii.
Marcos and his partners published two books in 2015 on truffle farming, printed in both in Spanish and English;
– Morcillo M, Sanchez M, Vilanova X. (2015), “Cultivar Trufas, una realidad en expansión.” 352pp. ISBN 978-84-617-3654-6
– Morcillo M, Sanchez M, Vilanova X. (2015), “Truffle Farming Today, a Comprehensive World Guide.” 352pp. ISBN 978-84-617-1307-3
Marcos also writes for two regular blogs about truffles since 2008:
– English – https://trufflefarming.wordpress.com/
– Español – https://micofora.com/blog
Christine is a specialist in mycorrhizal fungi, with a special focus on the Black Truffle.
During the past 20 years she has worked with a team of researchers on the ecology and cultivation of Black Truffles in Spain at the Forest Science Centre of Catalonia, where she leads a program for the certification of truffle seedlings.
Christine has participated in numerous international meetings and workshops to share and promote the principles for the cultivation of truffles in Europe, the USA, and Australia.
Her appreciation for how truffles and mushrooms offer a unique opportunity to examine symbiotic relationships found in nature has inspired her to design Truffle and Mushroom Tours in rural communities of Spain. These events offer explorations of culture, ecology and gastronomy for small groups of adventurers, meeting with truffle hunters and growers, nurserymen, truffle dogs, scientists and culinary artists. She draws on her many years of outdoor adventures, travel and teaching in designing these celebratory trips.
Alessandra is a professor in Botany at the Bologna University, Italy.
Alessandra has been working on truffle biology and cultivation since 1992, and was a member of the Tuber genome consortium established in 2005 for genome sequencing of the Tuber melanosporum and participates at the project 1kFG: Deep Sequencing of Ecologically relevant Dikaria.
Alessandra was a member of the scientific and/or organising committees of several national and international conferences. She is the President of the European Confederation of Mediterranean Mycology (CEMM) and of the Italian Mycological Society Unione Micologica Italiana (UMI) and an honorary member of the New Zealand Truffle Association. She is a member of the OPTIMA (Organisation for the Phyto-Taxonomic Investigation in the Mediterranean Area) and of the Italian “National Agricultural Academy”.
She has contributed to more than 200 scientific articles published in international and Italian journals, books or proceedings, with more than 100 of these on truffles.
Alessandra is the co-author of three Italian books on truffles and of the book in English: “Taming the Truffle: The History, Lore, and Science of the Ultimate Mushroom” of Timber press. She was also co-editor of two Springer books of Soil series: “Edible Ectomycorrhizal Mushrooms Current Knowledge and Future Prospects” and “True Truffle ( Tuber spp.) in the World: Soil Ecology, Systematics and Biochemistry”.