Harvest Time

August through October begins a busy season for those who tend or till the earth, whether gardeners or farmers, or vintners. This post is about harvesting hazelnuts, often not known as American filbert trees. My sister has been harvesting hazelnuts for a several years, and this year Land Girl and I spent that hot Saturday of Labor Day weekend assisting the harvest. Hazelnuts are perhaps best known for being in Nutella, but the American Hazelnut Company, you can find their website here, is trying to advance varied products produced from the small nut. That company is a consortium of six growers, of which my sister is one. 

Harvester going into a row of hazelnuts

Hazelnuts fit well with the US penchant for healthy and/or gluten free food. The American Hazelnut Company makes snack treats, cooking oil, and flour. Land Girl is now using hazelnut oil for much of our cooking. I drizzle some over the popcorn I make. The Arbor Day Foundation says this about hazelnut oil: "Compared to other cooking oils, hazelnut oil has really strong good fats, creating a healthy cooking oil alternative. It has been scientifically proven that a balanced intake of omega 3 and 6 along with a high level of omega 9 reduce the risk of cardiovascular related disease." I can also assert, that after assisting with the harvest by transferring the hazelnuts and some related detritus (husks and leaf residue) into bags that such  handling also provides some cardio-vascular benefit, at least when it is 85 to 90 degrees and you are in the sun. 

Pushing in the branches for the harvester

Hazelnuts limit erosion since they are a perennial plant that has a groundcover between the plants. A great crop for the hills and valleys of the driftless area of the state. It is a good alternative to water intense, California grown almond. After being established, little input is required. However, my sister's shrubs after 12 years of growth are so large that they need to be pruned. Growing of hazelnuts are so new in Wisconsin and in the upper Midwest that there is apparently little literature on best pruning methods. Hence, she plans to experiment with a few different pruning alternatives, including coppicing. She first planted in 2011, and has over 1000 hazelnut plants. 

Hazelnut husk on shrub

I found out a few things: (1) It is a very labor intensive process; (2) There is a good deal of detritus that goes with the harvest; and (3) they are a complex plant. Hazelnuts in the upper Midwest grow on bushes. Whereas, in New Jersey with a slightly warmer climate, for example, they grow on a tree. I am not sure which would be easier to harvest. On a tree, I wonder if they could be harvested by putting a net under the tree and shaking the tree, much like cherries, and other nuts are harvested. But, in Wisconsin we deal with bushes. 

Harvesting 

Methods differ, but the process is similar for varied nuts. First, they are removed from the tree, second they are dried, husked and then, at a food grade processing facility the shells removed. Almonds harvesting involves shaking the tree and the nuts fall on the ground, where they are left for about a week to dry, they are then swept to the aisle, and picked up, later husked and stored. When needed they are then processed.

The hazelnut harvest for my sister begins a large machine, that had been used to harvest blueberries in New York State. My sister acquired it to harvest hazelnuts. This large machine, which takes one person to drive, but at least four others to properly run, goes over the bush. It has beaters that rotate that are to brush off the hazel and its husk. Two persons, one on each side use a long pole to push the bush to the open belly of the machine where the beaters are located. Some, particularly the not quite ripe hazels are not always popped off the bush, leaving the need to hand pick. I wonder if part is related to the height of the shrubs bending over and too tall for the beaters. At least two people are required one on each side at the back of the machine to manage the bins; four persons, or two on each side makes the operation run even better. The hazel nuts are supposed to fall in one bin, and the debris blown into another bin. It does not always work like that, as the blowers have to be adjusted for the proper condition. The bins are dumped into large bags, which are set in the rows, and then picked up and dumped into smaller bags, that are like large onion bags. These bags are then hung in a place to dry (an old shipping container converted to a drying house). 

Filling bags for drying

The large onion sized bags are filled with the nuts, husks, and detritus, from the large green bags. IWe tried to remove what we could, but it is extremely tedious. Then there is the drying process. Drying is important. The less ripe hazels apparently will dry in this process. For the harvest that day we had 14, but deducting two young kids, we had 12 workers, each required for some sort of harvest complex that is the only thing that overdoes the complexity of the hazelnut. The day we assisted, the 12 people spent a total of 72 person hours for seven rows mainly of mechanical harvest, although one to two assisted in handpicking or picking up from the ground. Friday four to five people did the harvest and spent six hours, meaning 24 person hours. Over two days, the harvest was completed by machine at 96 person hours. The rows are then handpicked to get the hazelnuts missed by the mechanical harvester. One row has to be handpicked, as do the more recently planted cultivars. I do not know how many person hours are then spent handpicking, but it may well exceed the person hours of the mechanical harvest.

Hazelnut bags in drying container

This is a labor intensive process. My take is the harvest from the shrubs takes a minimum of 11 persons to be somewhat efficient, and best with at least 12 or 14 persons. Even more, could then handpick the rows after the mechanical harvester went though.

After drying, a machine acquired from Tukey (and not my fantasy football team), yes the country, is used to remove the husks and the detritus from the hazels. Hence, the hazelnuts are handled by (some being handpicked that are missed) emptying the bins into the green containers, picking up the green containers, emptying, by using a small bucket the contents of the green bags into the large onion type bags, hanging the onion type bags, emptying the bags after drying into the husker, and loading the husked nuts into bags to ship to the final processing place. Who knows how many times a nut is handled at the processing facility.

Area of hazelnuts
Source: Google images, mark by author

The long and the short of it is I know why hazelnuts are expensive. It is a labor intensive process. I suspect most large growers have more efficient methods of handling the harvest, drying and processing. There has to be a more efficient way for large growers. The nut is handled a great deal between pulling off the shrub to sending the dried husked nut away. Handling by hand involves people and makes it labor intensive. Harvest time of hazelnuts takes a great deal of person hours.

Photos by author, Sept 2023.