Nutritive Value of Persian Hazelnut (Corylus avellana L.) Orchards

Abstract

Hazelnut (Corylus avellna L.) is one of the important nut crops in world. The harvesting of<br />hazelnuts is done either by hand or by manual or mechanical raking of fallen nuts in Iran.<br />Common hazel is widely cultivated for its nuts, including in commercial orchards in Europe,<br />Turkey, and Iran. There are some genotypes of hazelnut in Iran that their growing areas are<br />limited to Gillan, Aredbil, Mazandaran, Golestan, Zanjan and Qazvin Provinces. Varieties,<br />location, composition of soils, usage of fertilizer and irrigation affect the fatty acid, mineral<br />and vitamin composition of hazelnuts, and consequently influence the nutritional value and<br />quality of the product. Therefore, the objective of this study was evaluation of protein, crude<br />fiber, and fatty acids in samples in Tarem and Rudsar County farmlands as two economically<br />important provinces. Samples were collected during the harvest season in 2015 from 10 different<br />distinguished cultivars of trees grown in a replicated trial in an experimental orchard. The<br />chemical and physical properties (crude protein, total fat, crude oil, crude fiber, ash, refractive<br />index) were analyzed according to AOAC methods. In investigation on these two varieties,<br />the highest fatty acid had oleic acid with 85.026% in Rudsar (Gillan) and 83.226% in Tarem<br />samples. Evaluation of 420 hazelnut seedling samples reveals that Rudsar variety samples<br />have more protein, ash and carbohydrate while crude fiber percentage in Tarem variety is more.<br />The results of this research reveals that geographical conditions affect the nutritional value of<br />hazelnut significantly (p <0.05).