Experts predict leaner nut crop.

Byline: Sherri Buri McDonald The Register-Guard

After a flurry of picking and cracking, federal agricultural officials predict that Oregon will produce 33,000 tons of hazelnuts this year.

That would be down 23 percent from last year's crop of 43,000 tons, but up 20 percent from 2005's crop, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service.

The forecast came in higher than estimates made earlier in the year, said Polly Owen, manager of the Hazelnut Marketing Board, "so this is extremely good news."

It also indicates a leveling out of what agriculture wonks call a "biennial bearing pattern" - a boom year, followed by a slack one.

Researchers haven't identified a single cause for the wild fluctuations, Owen said, but it seems to be related to harsh weather events.

Dwayne Bush, who grows hazelnuts on 270 acres in Lane County, called the federal crop forecast "about average."

"It would be nice if it was bigger, but hopefully the price will be up to make up the difference," he said.

The price that Oregon growers will fetch is shaped by international market forces.

Between now and harvest time in late September or early October, the bargaining association for Oregon growers will hammer out a price with packers, Bush said.

Oregon supplies just 3 percent to 5 percent of the world's crop, Owen said. Increasingly, those nuts, which are larger than the varieties grown by other countries, are exported to China and Hong Kong, where hungry consumers enjoy eating them straight out of the shell, Owen said.

Turkey is the top producer, supplying 70 percent to 75 percent of the world's hazelnuts, and the political climate there influences prices, she said.

"We believe the price should be favorable," Owen said. "Their government in power is very much committed to not oversupplying the world."

Turkey carried over some inventory from last year, she said, but Turkish officials have said those nuts will be made into oil, instead of dumped on the world market.

The process to predict Oregon's hazelnut crop actually began early this year, said Chris Mertz, director of the Oregon field office of the National Agricultural Statistics Service. Federal experts randomly selected 180 filbert orchards in the state, then randomly selected two trees on each of those orchards, and randomly selected two branches from each of those trees. The selected branches were painted in April.

Crews recently returned to those marked branches to pick nuts, which were delivered to the agricultural field office to be measured, weighed, cracked and analyzed, Mertz said.

With the help of a computer program, the sample data was extrapolated for a statewide crop estimate.

The agency has had a pretty good track record. In the past 17 years, its forecast has been within 10 percent of the actual crop figure in all but four of those years, Mertz said.

Hazelnut blight, a fungus, continues to threaten Oregon's orchards, but many growers are starting to plant immune trees that were developed at the breeding program at Oregon State University, Owen said.