Antioxidant Performance in Hazelnut (Corylus avellana L.) Cultivars Shell Is Substantially Influenced by Season and Locality

Hazelnut (Corylus avellana L.) is of great agroeconomic importance, prized for its nutritional value and antioxidant properties. Its yield and quality may differ due to factors such as season (S), locality (L) and cultivar (C). Our objective was to determine the adaptive behavior of morphological features and antioxidant properties in nuts of the Barcelona and Tonda di Giffoni (TDG) cultivars planted at two localities (Cunco and Perquenco) during three productive seasons (S1, S2 and S3). Barcelona grown in Perquenco in S1 and S3 (less precipitation, more solar radiation) performed better than in Cunco with respect to most morphological nut, kernel and shell features, and the same parameters generally had the same trends for TDG in S2 and S3. Among the seasons at the same localities, the differences between the predominant condition defects for both cultivars were in the decreasing order wrinkled/deformed kernels, double kernels, blank and mold kernels, with about 75% of hazelnuts without defects. In both cultivars, the shell had higher antioxidant properties that increased in S1 and S3 at both localities and were consistently higher than in the kernels. Lipid peroxidation was higher in the kernel than shell in both cultivars and localities for S1 and S3. The results of this study suggest that the different hazelnut cultivar features including physical and chemical components depend on season and locality, which offers important clues for all those interested in the hazelnut industry.