Hazelnuts in Southwestern Ontario - a new future source of fuel?

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Lake Girl

Lake Girl

Moderator
Nov 12, 2011
6,939
NW Ontario
Snowy has proven it can be done - heat your home with hazelnut shells.

Apparently there is a new Brantford, ON plant that requires hazelnuts - Ferraro Rocher; maker of those yummy chocolates and Nutella. Should be interesting to see how the supply comes in .... Farmers in the Windsor area seem interested as they have lost Bick's pickles and Heinz's old plant was sold but will still have a scaled down production.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/hazelnut-farming-set-to-grow-in-southwestern-ontario-1.2892662
 
Where are the nuts going to come from? Seems like it's going to take several (at least) years to get the trees big enough to produce nuts ? Not like cucumbers or tomatoes where you can just plant in the spring and harvest in the fall, I don't think. Or do they already grow them up there?
 
Hope this works out :)

Our area has been a large Hazelnut growing area for a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time, and there is a local processing plant 15 minutes from my house.

The one thing to look for though is that some plants crack the shells in half and that's it.

The local plant we use runs everything out through a trash fan and the stuff is broken up pretty good.

Largest pieces are no bigger than your little finger nail.

If you end up with larger stuff, it would need to be broken up.
 
I always wondered how that all worked, Snowy ................
 
hossthehermit said:
Where are the nuts going to come from? Seems like it's going to take several (at least) years to get the trees big enough to produce nuts ? Not like cucumbers or tomatoes where you can just plant in the spring and harvest in the fall, I don't think. Or do they already grow them up there?
Click to expand...

Five to eight years for mature trees but some have already got trees going and harvesting. Ferraro Rocher is looking local for some of the future supply needs. That area of Ontario has had to reinvent itself in terms of farming. Tobacco used to be the crop but seems to be soybean now. The hazelnuts add another level of diversity which is always a good thing.

Time will tell ... just wish I was closer so we could experiment with the shells...
 
I know, I'd love a chance to experiment with other fuels............ the year before I bought mine, corn was much more available around here than it has been since , so I've been burning pellets ever since I've owned it ............ it's rated for cherry pits, distillers grains, etc.
 
Windsor, Ontario is also the home of Hiram Walker ... wonder where the distillery grains come from.

Found a website with cherry processors and locations with a couple from NY state (looks like western NY). Next closest appear to be around MI with a couple in southern Ontario .
http://www.cherryprocessor.com/

My Elenas are not multi-fuel but there still is the shop that could use some heat!
 
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