5 minute read
Growers in good heart over hazelnuts
Talk of growing hazelnuts in Canterbury may have seemed visionary at best 20 years ago but those that took the step are now reaping the rewards.
For Farmlands shareholder Peter Barrowclough, planting hazelnuts on his 10ha property in Canterbury was born of a desire to fill his land with a crop that provided a good return, was environmentally friendly and easy to manage.
That was 12 years ago. The Chair of the Hazelnut Growers’ Association of New Zealand (HGANZ), Peter is now being rewarded with strong and consistent yields of a nut that most will associate with Nutella chocolate spread or Ferrero Rocher chocolates. “I needed something that I could manage while still working full-time and hazelnuts are relatively bulletproof – they aren’t too frost sensitive and do their pollination during the middle of winter,” Peter says. “I purchased the trees from a local nursery and planted 3,000 on approximately 3ha. I have the Whiteheart variety – it is a smaller tree than the other varieties but produces a high-quality nut but lower yields per tree than some of the larger varieties like Barcelona.” Introduced 20 years ago by Lincoln University’s Professor David McNeil, the Whiteheart variety fits well into the cooler Canterbury climate and offers strong disease resistance. “They start producing after 4 years of growth and then there is a delay before they hit peak production after 10 years. From there you’re getting 20 years plus of production,” Peter says. “It’s a consistent crop but does have some biennial bearing tendencies. Other varieties that can grow in New Zealand are Barcelona and Ennis but the Whiteheart is the mainstay for the industry.” Hazelnut trees are not favoured by many pests in New Zealand, adding to the ease of care. “We get the occasional rabbits but don’t have a lot of problems. While the Australian orchards have trouble with kookaburras, the trees themselves don’t generally suffer from pest and disease and I haven’t had to use sprays on the canopy,” Peter says. “The real bonus is not having to harvest straight away – the nuts start falling in early March and if I can’t get to them straight away they’ll be fine for a couple of weeks.” For domestic hazelnut growers, most of their produce is sold locally. Peter supplies to a commercial processing facility but many growers process the nuts themselves to sell at local markets or to bakeries. Farmlands’ Category Specialist for Horticulture, Kasia Henderson, stumbled into the industry when she and her husband bought a plot of land outside Christchurch that had an existing hazelnut orchard. “Hazelnuts grow wildly where I grew up in Poland so I was familiar with them. We started with a small orchard of 10-year-old trees when we purchased our property and found very quickly that there was a market for fresh hazelnuts. As demand for our products grew we started harvesting nuts from a neighbouring orchard of 1,800 Whiteheart trees. “We have been able to build a small business from it. We harvest and process nuts to make a variety of products from roasted and raw kernel to oil, dukkah, butters and flour to sell at local markets and boutique retail outlets. “Hazelnuts are relatively easy to grow, hardy and don’t have big input requirements so you can have them as part of a lifestyle block to provide an extra income stream. “However they can be quite labourintensive during harvest and for processing so you do need to have a significant amount of trees to justify the purchase of harvesting machinery
and processing equipment. If you don’t want to process the nuts yourself, there are commercial factories purchasing locally grown produce,” Kasia says. New Zealand doesn’t have a significant hazelnut export industry and imports a lot of nuts to meet local demand. “The nuts are imported from Turkey but by the time they reach NZ they can be old and even rancid due to their high oil content,” Peter says. “Bakers and food producers prefer to substitute NZ nuts as they are fresher.” Kasia is also frustrated with the quality of the nuts being imported and sold here. “The hazelnuts we grow are fresh and of a premium quality. In order to keep the kernel fresh we crack them on a regular basis. The imported nuts are cracked and processed overseas so after several months in shipment, by the time they get to New Zealand they are dark and can look awful,” she says. “People buy them in the supermarket, taste them and aren’t very impressed so when we try to market our premium nuts, customers have already decided that they don’t like the taste. When they do try locally grown nuts however, they are often pleasantly surprised.” Peter believes opportunity in the local market is substantial as the crop has a good environmental footprint – you’re not getting any of the nitrate issues that are an aspect of some other farming systems. “In order to grow the industry however, we need to get more genetic material into the country. There are varieties being developed at Oregon State University and the climate there is similar to Canterbury,” Peter says. “Getting new material through New Zealand’s quarantine system is slow. It’s currently a 3-year wait to get options into system plus longer for the quarantine. We don’t have any major diseases of hazelnuts in NZ at the moment so have to be careful we don’t let any in as our trees wouldn’t be resistant.” With opportunities for growth and the easy-care nature of the crop offering an option for land diversity, hazelnuts are on the rise. “There are a lot of benefits from eating locally produced nuts, they’re a healthy option,” Peter says. “The demand for hazelnuts is growing worldwide so should production in NZ grow beyond the domestic market I think there will be an opportunity to export. “Our nut genetics need to improve to make sure we are getting more returns per hectare but as there is more attention coming onto the environmental footprint of the agriculture and horticulture industries, hazelnuts are becoming a good option for farm diversity,” Peter says. “Just don’t plant them on a hill,” Kasia says with a laugh. “Otherwise nuts will drop off the trees and just roll to the bottom!”
| The trees hit peak production after 10 years and then continue to crop for another 20.
Photos courtesy of Lincoln Agritech Ltd, Peter Barrowclough and Kasia Henderson
| Peter Barrowclough of the Hazelnut Growers’ Association says global demand is growing.
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