Bumper crop on my trees this year. Squirrels are pleased.

The Willamette valley produces about 95% of the domestic hazelnut crop. My trees are seedings I transplanted next to our woods and planted concord grapes next to. (So I could have my morning grapenuts). These days there are more blackberries growing up into them than grapes.

Deer will be happy

Well Beaverpeeler , I'd be out defending those trees those two varieties of nuts I enjoy the most ha ha

I've never seen those filberts anywhere other than from a grocery store , yes I've lived a sheltered life !

Your hazelnuts look great Carl. What variety are they?

Keith

X2.

Yeah, beaverpeeler, for some reason the epicenter of American hazelnut production ended up the Willamette. I'm not sure why, there are certainly more places than that where that nut can be grown in the U.S..

Because I study American land use as part of my job, I end up down interesting thread bunny trails of little known facts sometimes. I read a story about how almonds, which have been grown in the Cali Central Valley for a long time have really grown to be one of the main crops coming out of there. I can't remember the interesting article I read, it wasn't mostly from a new ag subsidy but to stick it to the Iranians after the Islamic revolution (maybe I'm confusing the story about increased pistachio nut production...) as well as Hollywood types getting into vertical integration of producing almonds.

Anyway, the sort of bottom line, blow me away factoid is that the U.S. (California) produces more almonds than the NEXT 9 COUNTRIES COMBINED. No wonder they have to come up with new products, such as almond milk, and you can buy "bulk" almonds (5-10 lbs at a time) at places such as Tractor Supply and Fleet Farm at a retaliative decent price...

These were seedling trees that I dug from under my dad's Barcelonas and Davianas in 1983. Both dominant varieties before eastern filbert blight hit us. These days Oregon State U. has bred at last 10 different blight resistant varieties which are being widely planted up and down the valley. 1000's of acres are being planted every year as the industry is growing rapidly. Funny thing is it was exports to China driving the market. Since Trump's embargos and Covid the Chinese market is pretty much dried up for the time being.

Filberts are also gaining favor since there is machinery to harvest the crop. The leading producer worldwide of filberts (aka hazelnuts) is Turkey where they are hand harvested off the bush. In Oregon they are trained as trees and the suckers sprayed dead. The nuts fall to the ground and are vacuumed/swept up by specialized machinery.

One of the reasons they are not grown widely in other areas is they require a mediterranean climate to do well. The catkins open in January here.

We have wild hazelnuts growing here.Gotta find them before the squirrells though.
In Ireland my uncle sold hazelnuts.They grow all over the place.I remember he had a bin full of burlap sacs of hazelnuts in the barn.
He showed me how to crack them with a pocket knife when I was about 5 or 6 years old.Just scrape off the little nub on the bottom then pry apart with the point of the knife.

Here in Iowa the American hazelnut bush is mainly used around ponds for the wildlife but the ones I’ve seen have only gotten about six tall so I dont know if it’s the type or our weather.

Boco -- he should have showed you how to put 2 in your hand and pop them. We wait til they hit the ground to harvest. BP -- my ffa project in h.s was a small neglected filbert orchard -- 5 acres or so -- it was all that was left of the barcelonas that my dad raised (about 15 acres) -- barcelonas don't like the blight. Bob -- I had some relatives from wisconsin visit and they kept asking where all the hazlenut bushes were -- my dad drove them to the end of our road and showed them a couple of nice "orchards" -- I don't know why they are a bush in your area other than climate -- even our "wild" ones (while resembling a bush) still reach 20 -25 ft tall. If i was a "smart" farmer I would have planted hazlenuts about 12 years ago. hindsight 20/20.

I planted about hundred hazelnuts last year. I planted Cortland, Lakeshore, Truxton, Beaked, American and 3 unknowns. Hopefully next year I should get a few nuts.

Keith

Right out of college I worked for the state sampling orchards to see what the yield was going to be. I sample orchards from Albany all the way down to Roseburg. Fun job.

Yep, poor man's nut cracker...two nuts in your hand.

we usually figure about 3 years to "noticeable " production. but those are all varieties that I don't recognize.

I planted a few turkish tree hazel/C. avellana crosses from a guy in Washington but they hardly produce anything. The seedlings are way more productive.

The 3 unknowns, I bought at auction, are a few years old and had a few pistils and stamen this year. The beaked were dug out of the wild and cut back for shipping. I think they have a good chance of producing next year too. Some of them have pretty heavy diameter bases.

Keith

Yep, poor man's nut cracker...two nuts in your hand.[/quote]


The wild ones are too small and hard to crack in your fist.

True. We have a wild one here too.

Our nut trees are trees, not bushes. Just my local observation.

A friend has some horticultural variety in his yard. They are about the height of big tag alders.

We have wild ones here in WI but being 6 ft tall I've never seen a bush I couldn't reach the top of. It seems that if you don't pick them when you first see brown on the edge of the husk. They will be cleaned off the brush by critters before the leaf's are all gone. Got to grab them at just right time lay them out or hang a bag somewhere safe to dry. Then when you shuck them a big meat will be just bit bigger than a pea. Lots time they have a little worm in them too. or you find a hole where the bug came out. Can be a lot of piddling to get enough to do much with. at least the ones I've messed with. But they sure are good easily my favorite. When was a kid Mom always bought couple bags of the big fancy one around Christmas. Other wise it was what every I scrounged for little locals from the power line cut or along the rail road tracks.. Now the spry a lot of that. My sister has some brush in her yard at the cottage. Rare to get more than a few nuts before critter clean them up. Don't think any make to the ground on their own.

Mac