A New Zealand Guide
- intended to allow growers, nurseries, and gardeners to identify or check their hazelnut varieties.
A joint project between
New Zealand Tree Crops Association
treecrops.org.nz
and
Hazelnut Growers Association of NZ
www.hazelnut-growers.org.nz
assembled with financial assistance from
Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries
Sustainable Farming Fund
www.maf.govt.nz/sff
as part of Project L08-088
“Assisting growers to achieve effective pollination
in NZ hazelnut orchards” (see Resources)
A New Zealand Guide
This covers varieties that were imported prior to 1990 by nurseries or research organizations such as the NZ Tree Crops Association and the DSIR (Dept. of Scientific and Industrial Research).
Over time, errors in the correct naming of some varieties have appeared. There are various ways that this happens: simple human error; seedlings establishing in propagation beds or among suckers collected from the base of cropping trees; propagation from unverified plant material; or poor record keeping.
These errors can have important ramifications when growers are planting commercial orchards and selecting combinations of varieties to provide pollinisers. It is essential that selected polliniser varieties have pollen that is compatible with the main crop variety and pollen is shed to coincide with the emergence of the red stigmas of the female flowers. This can only be assured if the varieties are correctly named.
New land owners who take over properties with unmapped hazel plantings may wish to identify the varieties present but have no local source of information.
Twenty years ago there were a number of mapped plant collections of hazel cultivars that could provide a reference for identification. Most of these have been removed and New Zealand now has just two mapped collections that contain most varieties.
The first is at Lincoln University and consists of a variety collection and two adjacent research plantings. The second is on private land at Wairata Forest Farm in the eastern Bay of Plenty. While these collections seem to be safe at present, history has shown that no collection can be considered to be permanent.
Therefore it is considered vital to the NZ hazelnut industry to collect and detail the characteristics of the named varieties held in these collections and make this information publicly available.
Sources of information
This website has been created as part of Project L08-088,
“Assisting growers to achieve effective pollination in NZ hazelnut orchards”
to provide accurate information on hazelnut varieties available in New Zealand. Verification of the identification of trees in the Lincoln University and Wairata Forest Farm hazelnut collections was carried out in 2008/9 by Murray Redpath of Wairata Forest Farm.
The characteristics of the trees of varieties originating overseas that are held in these collections have been checked against characteristics recorded in publications listed in the references and against nuts and trees of the same variety in the USDA National Clonal Germplasm Repository at Corvallis, Oregon, USA.
Details of New Zealand varieties and selections were obtained from the files of the Hazel Action Group (a branch of the NZ Tree Crops Association) and Wairata Forest Farm.
Feedback and comments are welcomed, at the foot of most following pages.
Full Report
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Disclaimer: The views expressed within these web pages do not necessarily represent the policy of the New Zealand Tree Crops Association Incorporated, Hazelnut Growers Association of New Zealand Incorporated, nor the management of this web site. Any advice offered does not imply warranty of any kind.
Link to static version (original) of this website