Extension Service Garden Hints

Filberts or hazelnuts? Oregon is number one in U.S.

CORVALLIS - Oregon grows 98 percent of the hazelnuts in the United States. But few Oregonians know much about our most important nut crop, according to Ross Penhallegon, hazelnut expert and horticulturist for the Oregon State University Extension Service.

Filberts are the same as hazelnuts.

There are more than 3,755,000 hazelnut trees in Oregon, worth $49.5 million, grown on 30,000 acres, mostly in western Oregon.

Most of Oregon's hazelnuts are grown in the Willamette Valley from Eugene, north to Vancouver, Wash. Some are also grown in British Columbia.

The United States produces about only about 3 percent of the world's hazelnuts. Ninety-seven percent of the world's hazelnuts are grown in Turkey, Spain and Italy, where they were domesticated from wild trees many centuries ago.