The macadamia nut is the only Australian plant ever
developed into a commercial crop. The tree
is evergreen. It is found in coasted subtropical rain
forests. The leaves are deep green and glossy.
They resemble holly. Macadamia leaves make
handsome Christmas wreaths.
The tree takes seven years to bear fruit. Macadamia
nut trees live for over 60 years. A mature tree
will produce 60 to 150 pounds of nuts a year.
The first commercial macadamia orchard was established
in Australia about 1888. In 1858
Walter Hill, who was Brisbane Botanical Garden's administrator,
was given a few nuts to plant and cultivate.
Hill assumed the nuts would not germinate unless removed
from their hard shells. That proved to be true.
The earlier aboriginal tribes had a suspicion that
the nut was poisonous. So Hill was horrified to see
his assistant eating the kernels and proclaiming them
delicious! A few days later when the boy
didn't get sick, Hill himself tasted the kernels.
He was so favorably impressed by their flavor that
he immediately became an enthusiastic promoter of
the macadamia nut. see recipes of
macadamia nuts
In 1858
Hill planted the nuts on the banks of the Brisbane
River in Queensland. That tree is still alive
today. After 142 years this tree measures eight feet at the base around the tree
and the tree continues to bear nuts.
The nut became famous as the "Australian
nut", the "Queensland nut", the "bauple
nut" the "Bush nut", and the "Australian
hazelnut". It was named because the nut was used
as a bartering item by the aborigines, .
In 1882 the seeds of macadamia nuts were traded
to Herbert Purvis. He began planting macadamia nut
trees in Hawaii. In 1918 the nuts were so successful
that 18,000 macadamia nut seedlings were planted on
the Honokaa Sugar Company plantation in the big island
of Hawaii.
In 1922 Ernest Van Tassel organized the Hawaiian
Macadamia Nut Company. Several years later he planted
25 acres of macadamia nut seedlings. The orchards
we located just behind the city of Honolulu on the
mountainsides on the Island of Oahu.
In spite of all the effort, the nut was hard
to grow. It developed a reputation of being impossible
to propagate by grafting. This was solved in
1926. That lead to a commercial orchard being developed
using grafting instead of seedlings. It was
known as the Kau variety. The Kau variety has been
the most excellent cultivar for macadamia nuts and
is the common variety grown in Hawaii today.
In 1980 about 25 million pounds of in-shell nuts
were produced in Hawai., This compares to 3 million
pounds grown commercially 45 years ago in 1960.
Macadamia nuts have become the third largest agricultural
crop in Hawaii behind pineapple and sugar.
The second
largest producer of macadamia nuts is Australia. They
raise around 3 million pounds a year. The Republic
of South Africa is third. It grows about 2.5 million
pounds a year. Fourth place is Guatamala. Then other
growing countries in order of importance are Brazil,
Costa Rico, Zaire, Malawi. There is a small crop in
California..
Small plantings also exist in New Zealand, Venezuela,
Mexico, Zimbabwe, Peru, Indonesia, Tahiti, New Caldonia,
El Salvador, Jamaica, Paraguay, Columbia, Western
Somoa, Thailand, Taiwan, Fiji, Israel, Tanzania, and
Ethopia.
The nut is primarily grown wherever coffee
crops
are grown - requiring similar climate and altitudes.
Therefore macadamia nuts are always
found
in the same countries you see coffee exported from.
In recent year the crops have been
abundant and the prices have come down as supply has
exceeded demand. But the crops are affected by drought
and will not bear a crop unless they have sufficient
moisture. In 2001, 2002, and 2003 Australia faced
a severe drought and the macadamia nut crop was reduced
to almost nothing.
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