After an excessively dry summer, black truffles are becoming few and far between in the misty hills of the Piedmont region in northern Italy.
"The moon is perfect, and yet I only found two little ones last night," Giuseppe Esposito, 69, told AFP as he searched with his dog Attila.
"We needed rain in July or August," he said of the spots where he usually hunts -- the precise location of which he keeps a closely guarded secret even from his wife.
Truffle gathering is an important tradition in rural Italy, and often a source of untaxed supplementary income for local residents, with white truffles worth several thousand euros per kilogram and premium black truffles typically selling for hundreds of euros per kilogram.
Most black truffles now come from truffle plantations or cultivated truffle grounds, where trees have had their roots soaked in a truffle-based slurry to encourage the fungus to grow.
In his woods in Pietra Marazzi, Marco Boido, 49, a truffle dealer and restaurateur in nearby Alessandria, is also disappointed and worried.
"We started the season in a terrible way, we're at minus 50 percent in production," he said -- a month in from the start of the season.
"This year they're much smaller, and more fragrant, that's true," he said.
"If this drought continues, there will be fewer and fewer in our area," Boido said.
- 'Gives you goosebumps' -
A truffle hunter who works for Boido and preferred to remain anonymous said the production of white truffle was also "off kilter" this year.
"The unseasonal heat has dried out the banks of the streams and the dampest valleys," he said.
Another truffle hunter in Umbria in central Italy said that better areas for truffles this year were "more enclosed, cooler mountain valleys, where the moisture held" during the summer.
"The aroma is exceptional and the texture very firm, which is keeping market prices high."
For several years now, Italy has also had to contend with the growing strength of the Spanish truffle industry, where farmers have planted vast truffle orchards and slashed costs.
In 2025, the Italian government once again tried to reform the truffle sector by encouraging more production in truffle plantations.
But the bill faced strong opposition from traditional "trifulai" -- the word for truffle hunters -- and it remains stuck in the Senate.
"We need policies to shift the calendars and to manage the land, so as not to block the water that runs down with the plants," said Fabio Cerretano, president of the Italian federation of truffle gatherers' associations.
In Piedmont, Esposito said he hoped his tradition would continue and spoke of the "emotion" of truffle hunting.
"When you catch the scent of the truffle, when the dog starts digging, and he plants himself there and doesn't give up... it gives you goosebumps."
