Jason Fischbach, an emerging crops outreach specialist and professor with UW-Madison Extension, has developed a commercially viable hazelnut, Wisconsin Public Radio reported.
“Hazelnuts are super popular worldwide,” Fischbach said. “You go to Europe, and it’s sort of like the equivalent of our peanut. But hazelnuts haven’t really been a thing in the United States, primarily because they haven’t been available. But Midwesterners are finally discovering hazelnuts and they love them. And we can’t grow them fast enough.”
While hazelnuts are native to Wisconsin, the state’s native plants produce small kernels for eating. Fischbach and the Upper Midwest Hazelnut Development Initiative are combining hazelnuts with Oregon varieties to produce larger kernels.
This gives them more commercial viability in addition to disease and winter resistance.
Fischbach said it can take about two years for a plant to bear fruit.
Those interested can purchase hazelnuts to grow from MidwestHazelnuts, LLC and the Upper Midwest Hazelnut Development Initiative’s new “Adventure Series” of cultivars. People can get on a waiting list right now to be notified of when hazelnuts are for sale.
