Hazelnut News

N.J.’s best ice cream shop: This Jersey classic still lives up to its rep (NJ.com, 2016)

There’s probably only one ice cream shop in the state where you’ll get the latest intel about a hazelnut breeding team.

The Rutgers Hazelnut Breeding Team, to be exact, which after 20 years of research and breeding has produced the first hazelnuts grown for production in New Jersey.

“We were cracking hazelnuts all winter,” said a smiling Matt Errico, co-owner of The Bent Spoon in Princeton.

Hazelnuts could never grow in New Jersey — until now (northjersey.com, 2018) [VIDEO]

Farmers tried to grow hazelnuts east of the Rocky Mountains for hundreds of years with no luck — a naturally occurring fungal disease made it nearly impossible.

But that’s about to change.

After 22 years of research, Thomas Molnar, a plant biologist at Rutgers University, had a breakthrough.

• Opinion: East Coast hazelnuts a breeding triumph (northjersey.com, 2018) [VIDEO]