Jefferson
OSU 252.146 × OSU 414.062, crossed in 1993
The record
- Parentage
- OSU 252.146 × OSU 414.062, crossed in 1993
- Origin
- Shawn A. Mehlenbacher and David C. Smith, Oregon State University · Corvallis, Oregon · released January 2009
- Rights
- freely propagated — Released as a public variety in the United States with no restrictions on use by growers there. A licensing agreement grants Viveros Nefuen of Hijuelas, Chile the exclusive right to propagate it and sell trees in South America.
- Also known as
- OSU 703.007
- Nut
- Large, released for the in-shell market
- Kernel
- Fills roughly 43 percent of the shell
- Blight
- Very high resistance from the ‘Gasaway’ gene at release; reported infected by the strains found from 2023
- Pollination
- Pollinized by ‘Theta’, ‘Eta’ and ‘Felix’ — ‘Felix’ earliest, then ‘Eta’, then ‘Theta’
Description
The cultivar released to replace ‘Barcelona’ in the in-shell market, and the one whose rights are worth studying. Oregon State put it out as a public variety with no restrictions on US growers, and licensed South American propagation exclusively to a Chilean nursery. The same plant is therefore free to propagate on one continent and not on another, which is a reminder that a rights record is a statement about a jurisdiction, not about a plant.
It is also the cultivar that made the 2023 news worst. Released as very highly resistant, carrying the single dominant gene from ‘Gasaway’, it is among those now reported infected by the new strains. Nothing about the original record was wrong. The pathogen changed.
Where to find it
No source recorded. That does not mean the cultivar is unavailable, only that this record does not yet name a nursery carrying it. Point us at one and it goes in.