Alaska-grown hazelnuts? A changing climate is helping growers coax unusual crops from northern soil

PETERS CREEK — The little tree in Josh Smith’s yard at the base of Bear Mountain resembled an alder, the scrappy and familiar Alaskan shrub.

But the sturdy sapling with oval leaves was actually a hazelnut, a crop that Smith is hoping might also someday thrive in other yards as the state’s climate changes, bringing fresh potential for new sub-Arctic exotics.

Alaska is warming two to three times faster than the global average. The state’s growing season is three weeks longer than it was in 1970, making for a significant and ever-changing shift in what can grow here. Peaches and plums in Nikiski, walnuts and cherries in Anchorage, asparagus in Fairbanks — a striking array of crops being cultivated in a state traditionally known more for carrots and cabbage.

Now Smith, a 32-year-old U.S. Air Force veteran who operates Bear Mountain Forest Nursery, is working with University of Alaska researchers to find a strain of hazelnuts able to withstand the state’s temperature extremes.

Hazelnuts, also called filberts, are the fruit of the hazel tree, which is in the birch family. The nuts, Smith says, appeal to him as a potential new food crop without the evolutionary characteristics of highly invasive species introduced to the state, like the European bird cherry.

He doesn’t expect Alaska to start outpacing Oregon, the country’s major hazelnut producer, anytime soon. Rather, he said, he’s hoping to bring more Alaskans to a conversation about food security and homegrown horticulture amid the state’s shifting temperatures.

“Climate change drives so much of what I do,” Smith said. “Yes, we already have barley and potatoes covered. Not many fruits and nuts have been adapted for Alaska’s conditions. We’re trying to change that.”

New normal

Anchorage hit 90 degrees for the first time on record in 2019. Statewide, average annual temperatures are 3 to 4 degrees higher than they were in the mid-20th century. Researchers say shifts like these are leading to devastating effects such as rapidly receding Arctic sea ice and coastal erosion, thawing permafrost and more wildfires.

They’re also forging a new, albeit unpredictable, agricultural landscape.

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By the mid-2070s, the growing season in Fairbanks could extend almost into mid-October. It ended in late August in the 1980s, according to an Alaska Garden Helper tool developed at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reflected the state’s warmer conditions in an update last year of its map of plant hardiness zones based on changes in climate, according to Nancy Fresco, an associate research professor at the UAF International Arctic Research Center.

“Hardiness becomes really crucial and is often the limiting factor in Alaska,” Fresco said.

So what about hazelnuts? Those trees are recommended for USDA hardiness Zones 4 through 8, she said. Historically, the zones around Anchorage were more like Zone 3 or just barely 4, but the new maps and the UAF projections suggest the city and surroundings are well into Zone 4 or possibly 5.

“Any crop in Alaska, there will be a learning curve,” Fresco said. “It’s interesting and encouraging to know that people are putting in the research and the time and the effort just to figure that out for new crops.”

Northern surprises

Researchers have been creating Alaska-hardy stock for more than a century: The Sitka hybrid strawberry was developed in 1907 by Charles Georgeson, who established Alaska’s agricultural experiment stations.

But expanding seasons and innovation have made a new array of fruits and vegetables possible in the past few decades, growers say.

A visitor to the Alaska State Fair earlier this year might have inadvertently spied some examples of changing crops over the past few decades while ogling giant pumpkins and cabbages. Onions, corn and all kinds of hot peppers were among the fair competition specimens that stood out to crops superintendent Kathy Liska as she judged entries in late August.

“The biggest thing I see here is the tomatoes,” Liska said. “They’re migrating from the greenhouse to the outdoors.”

Doug Tryck, a Rabbit Creek grower who’s worked with Smith and grown some hazelnuts himself, is raising historically unusual crops like sweet cherries but also Manchurian walnuts, a crop unthinkable in the state until recent years.

“They are starting to produce walnuts,” Tryck said. “They aren’t as big as others, but are sure good eating.”

Some growers are also taking advantage of technology like high tunnels to nurture varieties that a few decades ago might not have survived.

Mike O’Brien, owner of O’Brien Garden & Trees in Nikiski, has been growing since the 1970s. That’s when he started grafting, using root stock hardy enough to work in Alaska. Then he added in what became 11 high-tunnel greenhouses to provide wind shelter and warmth.

Asked what he’s growing this season, O’Brien reels off a list like he’s in a “Forrest Gump” scene about fruit instead of shrimp: apricots, sweet cherries, tart cherries, peachcots, plumcots, peaches, nectarines, plums, pears, numerous kinds of apples, and “ALL the berries.”

Was it possible to grow peaches, plums and pears in Alaska 20 years ago with the high tunnels that make his harvest possible?

“Twenty years ago, maybe,” O’Brien said. “If we went back, say, 40 or 50 years, I would say no.”

Old rules no longer apply

Smith works a full-time job as a Department of Defense federal employee maintaining fuel systems on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. He said he got his start with plants as a YouTube connoisseur with “an ADHD niche obsession.”

Growing up in a military household, he moved frequently but spent a lot of time in the Northwest with his grandparents, who were “plant people.” Then, after his family moved to North Pole, Smith became involved with Future Farmers of America in high school.

As he got hooked on plants and greenhouse culture, Smith said, he was also mindful of the changing climate and its effect on growers.

“Nobody’s going to fix this for us,” he remembered thinking at the time. “All the rules that you’re following no longer apply and certainly won’t apply in 20 years.”

Along with experimenting with various crops, from pears to hickory trees, Smith is also focusing on plants grown from local seed stock such as wild blueberries, salmonberries, cloudberries, devil’s club and other subsistence stalwarts.

He sold seedlings — including hazelnut starts — at several events this year.

Hazelnuts appealed to Smith as part of his larger mission to adapt plants to Alaska. His oldest tree is 8 years old. He happened to plant that one and was surprised to see it survive the winter. Then more recently, he learned that Tryck had ripe hazelnuts and drove down for a visit.

“I have pictures of ripe hazelnuts in my hand, and literally grew seedlings from that,” he said.

The small, round nuts are more than just a coffee syrup flavor or an ingredient in Nutella, the sweet chocolate spread. A research and breeding consortium involving the Arbor Day Foundation, Oregon State University, Rutgers University and the Nebraska Forest Service/University of Nebraska-Lincoln believes they “hold great promise for increasing the world’s sustainable food, feed, and energy supply.”

As the first snows of winter coated his nursery at the end of October, Smith hailed the arrival of two new hazelnut “hardy breeding lines” he’d ordered from Canada: a northern Saskatchewan strain, hybrids between American and European hazelnuts; and Siberian hazelnut hybrids from Quebec.

He planted about 150 hazelnut seedlings at the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Matanuska Experiment Farm in Palmer last year to see how they fared.

Most survived the spring but many didn’t make it to September, due to some experimentation with fertilizer, Smith said. Next spring, he plans to replace the casualties with hardy seedlings that overwintered at his property, along with some new starts from the Canadian seeds.

Then he’ll see what happens next,

“I’m not going to make a promise that this is going to be Alaska’s next big commercial industry. Part of it’s also PR ... wow, we’re planting hazelnuts in Alaska. That’s bold,” Smith said. “We want people to open their eyes to the new reality and bring people to that conversation.”