← hazelnut
patented
McDonald
‘Tonda Pacifica’ × ‘Santiam’
The record
- Parentage
- ‘Tonda Pacifica’ × ‘Santiam’
- Origin
- Oregon State University hazelnut breeding program · Corvallis, Oregon · released 2015
- Rights
- patented — US Plant Patent PP28,200, and Plant Breeders’ Rights in Canada. A licensed Oregon State University variety; at announcement the university said it would collect a royalty of 50 cents per tree sold to Oregon growers. Check the current term before propagating.
- Also known as
- OSU 880.027
- Kernel
- Medium to small, for the kernel market; fills about 51 to 52 percent of the shell
- Blight
- Described at release as very resistant, from the ‘Gasaway’ gene; reported infected by the strains found from 2023
- Incompatibility
- S-alleles S2 and S15
Description
The kernel-percentage cultivar. Slightly over half the weight of a nut in the shell comes out as kernel, against roughly 43 percent for ‘Jefferson’, and for anyone selling shelled that ratio is the whole economics of the crop — every point of shell is freight, storage and cracking paid for on material that gets thrown away.
It carries a recorded S-allele pair, S2 and S15, which is the sort of detail worth keeping. Hazelnut pollination is settled by allele identity, not by bloom charts alone, and a block laid out without checking the alleles can be busy and barren at once.