Home and Garden Corner

HAZELNUT RESEARCH

As the world looks for ways to feed a growing population and also to conserve energy, the research surrounding hazelnuts is beginning to gain momentum.

At Arbor Day Farm, the research work goes on developing disease-resistant, hardy hazelnut bushes. With help from scientists at Badgersett Research Farm in Minnesota, the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, and Rutgers University, dozens of most promising varieties of hazelnuts have narrowed down to the ten best producers. These will be used as the Foundation continues to promote the concept of woody agriculture as an improved method of land stewardship and a way to help fight global warming.

Woody plants are three times more effective at capturing solar energy than annual plants. This “photosynthetic efficiency” means woody plants used on a large scale could reverse increases in carbon dioxide…and its effect on global warning itself.

Arbor Day hazelnuts are hardy shrubs resulting from years of research and crossbreeding of Amerjcan, beaked and European hazels that flourish in a wide range of soils from hardiness zones 3-9.

Bushes will begin producing within 4-5 years and once established will yield up to 7-10 pounds of nuts every year.

For more details if you would like to participate in this testing project visit http://www.arborday.org/hazelnuts.

Excerpts on hazelnut research were taken from the January/February 2008 issue of Arbor Day and from www.arborday.org with permission from the Arbor Day Foundation.