16 CapitalPress.com
April 15, 2016
Hazelnut growers use several tools to fight EFB
For the Capital Press
Jeff Newton, manager of
Christensen Farms’ 700 acres
of hazelnut trees, looks at the
sky hopefully and says he
wishes for a few dry days.
If the dry days come, you’ll
find him directing spraying
from helicopters, airplanes
and ground rigs, a routine he’ll
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continue every two weeks until
the trees completely leaf out.
Fungicides are among sev-
eral lines of defense against
the Eastern Filbert Blight, a
fungus that weakens and even-
tually kills productivity in
hazelnut trees. The blight has
been hitting Oregon orchards
for decades, but his have been
hardest hit in the past five
years, Newton said.
Spraying is not the only
defense. New resistant vari-
eties, developed by Oregon
State University and released
in 2012, are showing promise
in the ground. There are also
some older, experimental Jef-
ferson trees growing on Chris-
tensen property that are doing
fine.
“But they’re resistant, not
immune,” Newton said, walk-
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Eastern Filbert Blight, the bane
of Oregon’s industry, infects
young leaves and branches
with pustules that leave tell-tale
scars, according to hazelnut
manager Jeff Newton. Growers
use several tools to stave off
EFB.
begins cutting out the infected
branches to stop the spread-
ing. The blight infects young
leaves and stems as it travels
through wind and rain.
Eventually, the infected
tree will weaken, even with
pruning, but long before that,
production will decrease, the
infected tree will be removed
and a new tree will take its
place.
The past five years have es-
pecially taken a toll on the or-
chards he manages, which are
scattered throughout Yamhill
and Polk counties in Oregon’s
Willamette Valley. Isolated
Buell, halfway to the coast on
Highway 22, was the last or-
chard to be hit with the blight.
Oregon’s battle with the
blight might have destroyed
the market if freezing disas-
ter had not struck a few years
ago in Turkey, which produces
most of the world’s hazelnuts.
Scarcity in the world market
pushed up Oregon’s nut pric-
es, inspiring other growers —
both new and experienced —
to plant more hazelnuts.
New acreage, spraying,
pruning and resistant varieties
have combined to stave off
the economic impact of the
fungus, although there’s still
an expected shortage until the
new nuts come online.
According to National
Agricultural Statistics Ser-
vice counts, there were nearly
30,000 acres in production (of
45,000 planted) in both 2002
and 2014.
Despite the blight, the in-
dustry is holding on, averag-
ing nearly $70 million in sales
each of the last few years.
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ing through young orchards,
the new Jefferson and Mc-
Donald trees now in their sec-
ond leaf. After just one year
in the ground, both varieties
are showing signs of blight
attack, but, unlike his Barce-
lona variety trees, blight pus-
tules appear but don’t seem to
spread on the Jefferson variety.
Instead, an injury will appear,
but quickly heals over, leav-
ing nothing but a small scar.
Whether that scar is hiding the
fungus that could impact pro-
duction down the road remains
to be seen, said Newton. Still,
he spent his winter planting
hundreds of acres of the five
resistant varieties, replacing
the weakening Barcelona trees
that make up most of Oregon’s
market — for now.
Newton and OSU research-
ers are carefully watching all
of the new resistant varieties as
they leaf out this year, includ-
ing orchards planted to Dorris,
Yamhill and Wepster varieties.
New varieties are not New-
ton’s only line of defense.
Hard pruning is another. When
older trees — the trees he man-
ages are from one to more than
50 years old — Newton’s crew
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Mike Hagerman
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michael.hagerman@wwcc.edu
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