Oregon is all about its nuts – hazelnuts!
Call them filberts or what you will, but drive almost anywhere in the Willamette Valley and you’ll pass hazelnut orchards. According to the Statesman Journal some 70,000 acres of Willamette Valley farmland are planted in hazelnuts trees and farmers are expected to plant 8,000 more acres each year. The 2018 harvest yielded about 47,000 tons, but by 2025, the yield is expected to be 90,000 tons annually.
I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when I found out my client worked in the hazelnut industry, I mean, 47K tons is a lot of nuts to deal with. As many of us do, I had forgotten that when I reach for my favorite agricultural products, hazelnuts or otherwise, that a lot of people have worked very hard to make those available to me.
It made sense that he found the perfect house in Salem as it’s centrally located in the Willamette Valley and I hope he’s going to love his new home for a good long time.
Fun Facts from the Oregon Hazelnut industry:
- The hazelnut became Oregon’s official State Nut in 1989.
- About 800 Oregon farm families grow hazelnuts on 70,000 acres.
- The total value growers received for their hazelnut crop has averaged nearly $70 million during the last five years. This translates into a total economic impact of more than $150 million in Oregon.
- Hazelnut trees can produce until over 100 years of age.
- The hazelnut is unique in that it blooms and pollinates in the middle of winter. Wind carries the pollen from yellow catkins to a tiny red flower, where it stays dormant until June, when the nut begins to form.
- The nuts mature during the summer months, turning from green to shades of hazel nestled in a protective husk, and are harvested in late September or October after they have fallen to the ground.
- In 1858, the first cultured hazelnut tree was planted in Oregon by retired Hudson’s Bay Company employee, Sam Strictland in Scottsburg.
- In 1903, George Dorris of Springfield started the first commercial orchard with more than 200 Barcelona hazelnut trees. Barcelona is the most prominent variety grown in Oregon today. The Dorris Ranch is now a living history filbert farm with thousands of visitors annually.
Also, if you made it this far and love to bake please make some of these cookies and write to me about how darn delicious they are!