Hazel Nuts
Eastern Filbert Blight (EFB) has virtually wiped out the Hazelnut harvest, but there’s still hope according to Thom O’Dell, biologist with Nature Tech Nursery. There will be changes, but also plenty of things to look forward to for those who embrace the industry.
“The industry is on the verge of collapse here,” notes O’Dell. “I hope it’s not. We anticipate there could be a shift in the whole industry.”
EFB is a fungus that causes small, but growing, cankers on trees. On domestic hazelnut trees (which produce fewer and smaller nuts), the canker comes down to appearances, but for European hazelnuts – those on which the local industry is based – it signals a death march. Leaves die, branches die and soon the trees die. Growers saw the significant impact of EFB in 2015.
“As late as a couple of years ago, we still had a couple of million pounds of harvest,” O’Dell says. “This past fall, what I was told, was that it was roughly 30,000 pounds harvested. This is the year of the real collapse of the harvest.”
EFB made its way into Washington in 1974 O’Dell says. First it went south to Oregon before coming to B.C. in 2005.
Some hazelnut growers have ripped their trees out, others have sold their land and others still were phasing out their farming practices already and felt reluctant to replant.
“In the last year or two, the blight was getting severe enough that people started cutting down orchards or pulling out trees,” O’Dell says.
It’s an issue impacting hundreds of acres and when the worst of the blight hit, it seemed to be the last nail in the coffin. Far from it explains O’Dell. With a nut as versatile as the filbert, there are plenty of uses and growing demand. Canada imports more than 90% of its hazelnuts, creating a vast market for domestic production.
“There’s a lot of potential in mixed small-scale agriculture. It’s not that hard to pull off,” O’Dell says. “It’s a very good crop in many respects, especially for people who want to be a part-time farmer. The nuts themselves have an amazing variety of uses.”
From face cream and candy to cooking oil and protein sources, hazelnuts are versatile enough to do it all. But what about dealing with the blight? How will growers handle that major issue? Fortunately, those in Oregon saw it coming and began a breeding program in 1968.
“They’ve been at it for that long,” O’Dell notes. “They started releasing blight resistant cultivars around 2005.”
Unfortunately, quarantine prevented the importation of hazelnut trees into B.C. at that time, but sterile tissue cultures started making their way here in 2010. The varieties are coming from European-based stock created in the Oregon breeding program. Six trial plots were established in B.C. in 2010 and O’Dell notes the trial trees are seeing yields grow.
For those reluctant to replant, O’Dell notes there are ways to generate farming income while waiting for the trees to get up to speed.
“You can do alley cropping,” he says. Garlic, organic rye and vegetables are just some of the options for alley crops he suggests.
While it seems all the problems have solutions, there are still a few bugs in the hazelnut system. With the light yields, one local processor has stopped operations and there is only one other left. Fewer nuts mean little business for potential processors, but O’Dell and others passionate about the industry hope new opportunities will revive the filbert industry.