In Ukraine's Zakarpattia region, the company Kontynent is developing one of the country's largest hazelnut orchards, covering 460 hectares. The orchard was planted between 2017 and 2019 and now counts about 250,000 bushes, mostly Italian varieties grown from in vitro planting material.
The farm chose a bush formation system, planting trees in a 3x5 meter scheme to improve light and nutrient access. According to director Vitalii Hanych, this design supports better plant growth but makes orchard management more complex compared to standard tree formats.
Although the orchard is still young and has not reached peak productivity, yields in some areas already reach 1.75 tonnes per hectare. The first harvest came in the fourth year after planting and was collected by hand. Today, most nuts are still picked manually due to the size of the plantation.
However, the company plans to shift fully to mechanized harvesting in the coming years. Mechanization is expected to reduce labor costs significantly, as manual collection remains expensive and time-consuming at current production volumes.
Source: agronews.ua