The Beast
NY 616 (Corylus americana ‘Rush’ × C. avellana ‘Barcelona’) × C. avellana OSU 226.118, crossed in 1990
The record
- Parentage
- NY 616 (Corylus americana ‘Rush’ × C. avellana ‘Barcelona’) × C. avellana OSU 226.118, crossed in 1990
- Origin
- Shawn A. Mehlenbacher and David C. Smith; selected and released through the Hybrid Hazelnut Research Consortium · Selected in Oregon; released through Rutgers · crossed 1990; patent issued 2021
- Rights
- patented — US Plant Patent PP33,561, issued 19 October 2021. ‘The Beast’ is also a trademarked selling name, for the first cultivar release of the Hybrid Hazelnut Research Consortium. Patent and mark are separate rights with separate terms — read both. Check the current patent term before propagating.
- Also known as
- OSU 541.147, The Beast™
- Parentage share
- About 75 percent European hazel, 25 percent American
- Hardiness
- More cold hardy than most pure European hazelnuts
- Kernel
- Most kernels 9 to 11 mm across, averaging 0.9 g, about 44 percent kernel by weight; blanches adequately after roasting
- Blight
- Carries an EFB resistance gene from Corylus americana ‘Rush’; reported to have shown no eastern filbert blight in New Jersey or Oregon
Description
The interspecific answer, and the one that widens the map. Three quarters European for nut quality, one quarter American for cold hardiness and for a resistance gene drawn from Corylus americana ‘Rush’ rather than from ‘Gasaway’.
A hybrid like this is the standard move when a crop’s cultivated gene pool runs out of answers — the same move the chestnut programmes made against blight and ink disease, a species boundary crossed deliberately to import a trait the domesticated side does not have.
It is also the cleanest rights record in the file. There is a patent, which governs propagation, and a mark, which governs the name. ‘Dunstan’ in the chestnut file shows the same two rights being confused; here they are simply both present, and both stated.