Purchase Test HazelnutsHelp the Hybrid Hazelnut Consortium by testing hazelnut seedlings in your own backyard. This data will help our scientists learn more about the hybrid seedlings potential in your area. 
Receive 3 Hazelnut Seedlings
Help the Hybrid Hazelnut Consortium by testing hazelnut seedlings in your own backyard. With every hazelnut purchased from the Consortium, we ask that you complete an annual survey to record data on your plant. This data will help our scientists learn more about the variability present in the hybrid seedlings and will inform them how hazelnuts grow in your area. Importance of individual ResearchSo far, we have been distributing seedlings of our best hybrid hazelnuts, with each seedling being genetically diverse and variable in its nut production characteristics. While these plants should prove very cold hardy and disease resistant, they will vary in terms of plant growth habit and vigor, nut size and shape, fall color, etc. While variability is vital to adaptation of a species, and it stimulates both fun and interest when observing the diversity present in hybrid plant material, it makes it hard to predict yields of nuts and to obtain consistent quality of nuts on a large scale. Consequently, propagating hazelnuts by seed makes large scale commercial production of nuts very challenging. To remedy this, commercial hazelnut production in Oregon, Turkey, and Italy, etc. is done by using clonal hazelnut cultivars. We plan to follow this approach for part of our research efforts and we will clonally propagate the best hazelnuts that are developed from our breeding efforts. These plants will provide consistent results, but they require many years of testing. Fortunately, research towards their development has been underway for over ten years. We are currently evaluating the “cream of the crop” of the 5,000 plants at the Arbor Day Farm and other Consortium locations. Once identified, we will establish the very best plants in tissue culture, an expensive procedure that is necessary to propagate large numbers of these plants for more widespread testing. Our first-generation clonal plants may not be suitable for large-scale commercial production, but their production characteristic will be proven and they will represent a substantial improvement over many of the more variable seedlings, in terms of nut yield and nut quality. Data generated as these plants are distributed and grown will greatly complement the seedling hazelnuts already established in our member’s locations, especially as data are taken on the clones’ adaptation to the many climates and soils across the United States in comparison to the seedling plants. Your experience with the seedling hazelnuts, which you can purchase and grow right now, will not only provide you and the Consortium data on the growing range, variability, and productivity of the hybrid seedlings, but it will also prepare you for growing the first generation of clonal hazelnut cultivars released by the Consortium. We will make our first-generation clonal cultivars primarily available to Arbor Day Foundation’s hazelnut members. |