NJ gets roasted over ‘nutty’ plan to make hazelnut the official state nut: ‘Why on earth?’

Giving the hazelnut its due in New Jersey is proving to be a tough nut to crack.

A proposal to designate the hazelnut as the Garden State’s official nut has gotten mixed reviews from lawmakers, some of whom are roasting the “moronic” plan because the nut has only been growing in the state for less than a decade.

However, those in favor argue the naming would be more of an “ode” to research efforts focused on creating a vibrant hazelnut industry in the state decades after the nut was all but wiped out by disease.

The state Assembly voted last week in favor of legislation to make the designation official, but opponents bristled because hazelnuts have only been commercially grown in New Jersey since 2020, following a decades-long effort by farmers, researchers and legislators.

Assemblyman Sterley Stanley, who authored the bill, called hazelnut trees “a true breakthrough in science that reinforces why we are known as the Garden State” during the legislative session, during which the bill passed the Assembly by a vote of 58-15, according to NJ.com.

But some lawmakers weren’t convinced.

“Why on earth do we need a state nut?” Assemblyman Brian Bergen asked during the session.

“This moronic, awful, stupid, crazy, nutty piece of legislation shouldn’t even be up for a vote today.”

Other opponents, like Assemblywoman Aura K. Dunn, asked whether the hazelnut is truly worthy to stand beside tried-and-true Jersey agriculture staples like corn, tomatoes, peaches and blueberries — which have been New Jersey’s official state fruit since 2004.

“Is the hazelnut indeed the proven nut?” she asked at the session.

Only a handful of hazelnuts, also known as filberts, are native to New Jersey, and just 5% of commercial hazelnuts come from the US. Turkey is far and away the world’s leading cultivator, producing some 70% of the global supply.

Eastern filbert blight, a fungal disease that’s lethal to commercially grown European hazelnut trees, has long made much of the US inhospitable to the nuts.

But a team of Rutgers researchers has been working to change that, and after more than 30 years released the first-ever blight-resistant hazelnut trees to the state in 2020.

Thanks to their efforts, New Jersey is now the only state on the East Coast where farmers are growing the primary ingredient in Nutella, with some commercial operations already starting.

“If we could find resistance to this disease … we could create a whole new industry,” Rutgers associate professor in plant biology Thomas Molnar told NJ.com.

Molnar and other supporters of the bill think anointing the hazelnut as New Jersey’s state nut could see the humble filbert ascend to a viable and profitable commercial crop in the state.

“We might spark, you know, a wider understanding of it and maybe a bigger investment in the state,” Molnar told the outlet.

However, naysayers in the Assembly think the designation isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

“It’s not the stuff we should be doing down in Trenton in a voting session,” Bergen told NJ.com. “We should be handling the big matters that the state needs us to do.”