Sniffing out a rare real estate find

The property is about 15 kilometres south east of Bridgetown and has a 21-year-old, large, open-plan, four-bedroom, two-bathroom Queenslander-style home.

Ancillary improvements include hardstand areas, a production workshop, two storage/pump sheds, a machinery shed, concrete rainwater tank, metal irrigation tank, three dams and a soak.

Hazeloak Farm has a 2.1 hectare reticulated truffiere, which was established in October 1997 with the planting of about 1000 mixed oak and hazelnut trees inoculated with Tuber Melanosporum (black truffle) spore.

Generally, in truffle production, the fungus spore forms a symbiotic relationship with the host tree and about five to seven years after planting, the tree produces truffles on its roots.

Each year the truffles start to form about six to seven months prior to harvesting.

They emit a pungent smell once they are ripe and with the help of trained truffle dogs and their handlers, ready truffles are hunted and marked in the truffiere each week over a season of 10-12 weeks.

The marked truffles are carefully checked and dug up by hand and then washed, processed, graded and weighed in preparation for sale.

The truffle season runs from June to September and the average retail price of WA black truffles is $2000 a kilogram.

The owners purchased the property from the original owner in 2010 and it has become a viable, commercial truffiere, producing varying yields up to 560kg of truffle in a season.

The truffles are sold directly to a marketing company in Manjimup and are subsequently marketed locally, interstate and internationally.