In lieu of the Winter Seminer Series, Christine has found some interesting hazelnut videos to watch.
Continue reading Hazelnuts on You TubeAuthor: Chris Robinson
2024 AGM President’s Report
HGANZ – Chair’s report for the year ended June 2024
At last year’s AGM in June, we took the step of increasing the subs because the
committee recognized the need to employ a part time executive officer if we were to
ever make progress on the industries goals. Fortunately, this was supported by
those present at the AGM.
2024 Winter Field Days
Jenny and Mark Harris Orchard – Rangiora/Cust
by Rose McDermott
It’s a labour of love to keep a hazelnut orchard, rather than a commercial enterprise – particularly given the investment in machinery.
For orchard maintenance, Mark and Jenny have given up on de-suckering and spraying, the yield didn’t justify the cost of the sprays. Their approach is minimalist, which has so far not affected yield. Pre-harvest they flail mow the orchard floor, blow the nuts, then harvest. On a good day they can harvest 2 blocks in a day. Post harvest they water the trees through autumn for the next year’s crop.
Continue reading 2024 Winter Field DaysHGA Field Days and AGM
22-23 June 2024, Canterbury
Saturday, 22nd June 2024
Orchard 1 Jenny and Mark Harris, Cust/Rangiora – grows a variety of cultivars, trialling new varieties and a small processing facility.
Orchard 2 Sarah and Malcolm Shore, Cust/Rangiora – more than 6000 hazelnuts with some interplanted walnuts.
Orchard 3 Ann Joseph, Lincoln – develops and sells specialty hazelnut products.
AGM, 3-5pm, The Lounge, Rolleston Community Centre, Rolleston
Dinner, 7pm, Rolleston
Sunday, 23rd June 2024
Orchard 4 To be confirmed
Orchard 5 Bronwyn Jeffs, Prebbleton – a 300-tree orchard pruned to an unusual standard.
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Snippets
A short history of Agri Australis/Ferrero in Australia.
The Group has farms in Chile, Argentina, Georgia and Serbia, and in 2011 began prospecting for a suitable site in Australia. Agri Australis bought two farms, Dellapool and Arrambee, in 2013 and hazelnut plantings started in 2014 with the millionth tree planted in 2018. They expected to harvest around 5000t from the 2000Ha.
There is limited information about what went wrong, but the area is considered semi-arid, and despite good irrigaition, the hot summers were perhaps too hot. For more information, check out
Australian Financial Reviews “Chocolate maker abandons $70m Ferrero Rocher nut orchards” (23.10.23)
Australian Rural and Regional News “Ferrero shuts down hazelnut projects” (2.11.23)
ABC Rural “Ferrero Group, the company behind Nutella and Ferrero Rocher to stop growing hazelnuts in Australia” (15.11.23)
Meanwhile, in Turkey, the crop from their 2023 harvest is estimated at 600,000T. This is lower than the initial Turkish estimate of 718,000T. Dry weather during the nut development stage in spring is blamed. Read more at freshplaza.com.
The Commodity Board is reporting some jiggery-pokery with the pricing, with the price of hazels increasing sharply, while demand in Europe is still low. Read more at commodity-board.com/what-is-happening-in-the-turkish-hazelnut-market-will-prices-fall//
Australian Hazelnut Trip – August 2023
by Pete Barrowclough, President HGANZ
In July 2023, Lincoln Agritech Ltd, of which I was CEO at the time, came across a request for Expressions Of Interest (EOI) to provide hazelnut research to the Australian hazelnut industry. This EOI was sent out by Agrifutures Australia which is a Rural Development Corporation. This EOI was open to all Australian and New Zealand research organisations. Lincoln Agritech Ltd submitted an EOI on the basis of its expertise in precision (sometimes called digital) agriculture. We were invited to a two day workshop at Albury on the border of NSW and Victoria. Dr Armin Werner and I attended the workshop. Around 15 Australian research providers also attended the workshop including universities, and state research organisations. Basil Baldwin was also there, who is seen as a guru for the Australian industry, having completed his PhD many years ago on Hazelnut growing (a link to his thesis is provided later in this Newsletter). He is Australia’s version of our own Murray Redpath. The workshop was broken up into themes that had been prioritized from the Australian Hazelnut 2030 Strategic Blueprint prepared in May 2022 (see link below), and research providers expressed interest in the themes that they could provide expertise for. The themes were:
- Promote efficient and sustainable production systems
- Benchmarking (improve systems through technology transfer and innovation)
- Build a vibrant and profitable hazelnut industry (explore and develop methods, processes or technologies; technology transfer).
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