Yes, there is a planting of hazelnuts at the Central Lakes Ag Center in Staples.  It was established in 2000 and has been bearing nuts since 2004.  Lois Braun (UM graduate student) has been collecting yield data on it and attempting to propagate the best bushes from it.  The new director of the Ag Center there, Bob Schafer, was most supportive about the planting.  Overall, the bushes at Staples are not as productive as some of those Lois has worked with further south.  She did not know whether it is because of the colder weather, or because of the infertility of the soil at Staples, or both.

As for hazelnuts on the White Earth Reservation, someone ordered some seedlings from Badgersett about three years ago.  Lois also supplied him with some seeds from White Earth.  But for more information you'll have to contact Steve Dahlberg (dahlbergsteven@yahoo.com).

The planting Lois knows about that is furthest north is that of John Munter, Warba, MN who planted his first bushes in 1991.  He is pretty pleased with them. 

The planting at Staples had higher survival than at many of the other sites.  Lois attributes that to the better care they received there, and to the fact that they were irrigated.  If it had not been for irrigation, that extremely sandy site would have been very challenging for hazelnuts.  Other site-specific variables to be considered include pests.  The planting at the Staples Ag Center apparently did not have significant herbivore pressure, probably because the only trees nearby are a narrow windbreak of poplar and Caragana.  However, another planting at the farm nearby was completely decimated by geese (I think, but am not sure, that they were domestic geese.)  So it is useful to know what herbivores live in ones area and to address that species specifically.  Rabbits and deer can destroy a planting if not managed.

Lois Braun a UM Researcher conducted the study at Staples.  Her email is brau0259@umn.edu