Extension Service Garden Hints

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

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Oregon grows 99 percent of the hazelnuts, or filberts in the United States. But few Oregonians know much about our most important nut crop.

Below are some little-known facts about Oregon hazelnuts from Ross Penhallegon, hazelnut expert and horticulturist for the Oregon State University Extension Service.

Filberts are the same as hazelnuts.

There are more than 3.1 million hazelnut trees in Oregon, grown on 28,500 acres, mostly in western Oregon. For 2005, the crop is expected to be worth about $450 million.

Over the past two years, about 3,000 acres of filberts have been removed in Oregon, because of eastern filbert blight, a fungal disease. But the OSU College of Agricultural Sciences has released a new blight-resistant variety of hazelnut called “Santiam.”

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 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.

Hazelnuts were introduced to the U.S. from Europe by Felix Gillet, who brought them into a nursery in Nevada City between 1884 and 1905.

In Europe the hazelnut is mainly grown as a bush or multi-trunked shrubby tree. In Oregon, growers primarily raise hazelnuts as a single-trunked tree that grows 50 to 60 feet tall. A few of our orchards have multi-trunked trees.

Hazelnut production per acre varies considerably from year to year. For example, in 1988, Oregon hazelnut production was only 800 pounds per acre. In 2003, the average yield was around 1,900 to 2,100 pounds per acre. The state average for nut production is 2,100 pounds per acre.

To learn more about growing hazelnuts download OSU Extension’s publication, “Growing Tree Fruits and Nuts in the Home Orchard,” (EC 819), at http://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog/html/ec/ec819/.

Printed copies are available by mail, by sending a request for EC 819 and a check or money order payable to OSU for $2 per copy plus $3 for shipping and handling to: Publication Orders, Extension and Experiment Station Communications, OSU, 422 Kerr Administration, Corvallis, OR 97331-2119.

By: Carol Savonen
Source: Ross Penhallegon

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