Climate and Truffle Harvests: What the Science Shows

A study of 49 years of harvests in Spain, France and Italy relates winter black-truffle harvests to rainfall in the preceding summer. That long-term relationship does not predict the harvest of one forest or year, nor is it a separate forecast for Istrian white truffles.

For Istria, this page retains public accounts from truffle hunters about drought, heavy storms and forest clearance. They describe field experience. Read them separately from the measured long-term series in other countries: testimony is not the same as a locally measured trend.

Harvest studies of black truffle (Tuber melanosporum) cannot be transferred directly to white truffle (Tuber magnatum). For its local ecological context, read about the white truffle habitat in Istria.