If our British friend has some optimistic views on truffle yields, so does Charles Lefevre of New World Truffieres, in Eugene, Oregon. According to Forbes, he’s dreaming of a white (Italian white) Christmas:

His other goal is to cultivate Italian white truffles–a feat he says no one in the world has yet accomplished. He has inoculated seedlings with Italian white truffle and kept the resulting mycorrhizae alive for three years, so far. “If you could cultivate Italian whites,” he says, “and if your trees managed to produce a hundred pounds per acre–which is common with French blacks–then at $2,000 a pound you’d make $200,000 per acre per year.”

Lefevre dreams on: “If you had 10 acres, you could work leisurely for maybe five weeks each winter and have a $2 million annual income.”

When truffle pigs fly.

Having met Charles, I think I can say that his tongue must have been firmly in his cheek. The Forbes article is worth a read, though.