Nebraska Forest Service

11, Ord, NE 68862 Norfolk, Nebraska - Northeast District North Platte, Nebraska - Southwest District, 461 University Drive, North Platte, NE 69101 Clay Center, Nebraska - South Central District, Box 66 Clay Center, NE 68933-0066 Lincoln, Nebraska - Southeast District and Headquarters, 102 Forestry Hall, Lincoln, NE 68583-0815 Program areas within the agency include Rural Forestry, Community Forestry and Sustainable Landscapes, Forest Health, Wildland Fire Protection, and Marketing and Utilization.

The Marketing and Utilization program of the Nebraska Forest Service is responsible for managing and promoting forestry products around the state, such as hybrid hazelnuts and woody biomass.

The goal of this project is to accelerate commercial development of the hybrid hazelnut as a profitable, environmentally friendly food and bioenergy crop for producers in Nebraska and the central United States.

After nearly a century of breeding, cold-hardy, disease-resistant hybrids that produce commercial quantities of high-quality nuts in Nebraska are now available.

The focus of woody biomass utilization in the state is reducing Nebraska's energy dependence on fossil fuels, creating jobs and new sources of income in depressed rural areas, reducing forest fuel loads and risk of catastrophic wildfires, creating markets for eastern redcedar cleared from grazing lands, addressing scarce water issues in drought-stressed watersheds through forest management and creating more productive, healthier forests and revitalized rural communities.