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Hazelnut Farmers
Retired Rutgers University professor C. Reed Funk has created an innovative new project centered around hazelnuts. He wanted to breed a new hazelnut tree for New Jersey and the northeaster United States. He recruited Tom Molnar, then nineteen, to help him with his project. Molnar was a biology student working at Rutgers for the summer. Funk envisioned a world where the hazelnut could help fight hunger and believed its oils could be converted into a biofuel.
He chose hazelnuts because of their endurance. They are perennials, which means they only need to be planted once. The hazelnut trees can grow along ridges, in rocky soil, virtually anywhere. They also have deep roots which make them resistant to drought, an important quality in a warming world.
In order to carry out this project Molnar and Funk have crossed thousands of plants. They need a tree that goes beyond normal desired characteristics, like disease resistance and good crops, they want something that can stand up to frost. Molnar and Funk use the art of plant breeding, which has been around for centuries, which is the purposeful manipulation of plant species.
Molnar says, "We cross plants that we pick based on certain characteristics we feel are important in hopes of combining the best traits of either parents in the offspring. We plant out the nuts- the seeds- resulting from the cross and grow, for example, 100 seedlings, which are the progeny." It takes another four years for the trees to start producing the nuts, from which the scientists pick the best ones. This whole process could take anywhere from five to eight years. Once the winner of the group is selected the scientists cross it with another desirable plant and breed them again.
The scientists still had the problem of a fungus that would wipe out the hazelnut crop. Molnar and Funk needed to find plants that would not succumb to the fungus. They were joined by David Zaurov, a plant nutritionist and soil scientist from Uzbekistan. Zaurov offered to take Funk and Molnar to Central Asia. The men also traveled to Russia, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Poland and Belarus. Funk suggested going to local markets, instead of tramping through the woods, in order to find seeds. These markets produced thirteen samples of seeds that were resistant to the fungus.
Even though Funk and Molnar have been working for over a decade Molnar still considers the project in its beginning stages. They have 11,000 plants growing in the fields ranging from 3-year-olds to 11-year-olds. Including seedlings growing in greenhouses, the total number of plants being grown is closer to 20,000. in December Molnar won a $72,000 grant from the Department of Transportation to start investigating the potential of the hazelnut for biofuel. Molnar acknowledges that this project could very well be his lifetime's work, however he and Funk have made an impressive start.
For Further Information:
The Surfrider Foundation
The World Wildlife Foundation
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