Storm Damage & New Crop

Tree damage from high winds 😕

After a bad storm I found 3 ash trees down in this part of my orchard.  I was sure wondering how many hazelnut plants are under those ash trees.

This downed ash tree was at the other side of the hazelnut orchard with the new seedlings from this year.  I did finally get this tree down without any damage to the new trees but the fence had to be repaired.

The deer fence was completely crushed from 2 ash trees. This is the first area I cleared so I could repair the fence before the deer and rabbits found the opening.

This is the only hazelnut plant that was really crushed. I removed all the broken branches and now it's looking pretty good for having had 2 ash trees on top of it.

This was taken while visiting my son in Lino Lakes, MN, which had a severe storm with lots of hail a few days before we arrived.  In this picture I was checking the damage to the hazelnuts that I planted four years ago.

The hail damaged a lots of the leaves on the plant, but the new crop of nuts still looks good.

NEW CROP 2017

Large crop of hazelnuts this year, now I just have to keep ahead of the squirrels!

Some of the branches that have lots of nuts are on the ground, which makes it a little hard to mow.

THE NEW CROP 

I'll try to show the big diversity of husks, which is the covering on the nut before it ripens.

The picture here shows more of a flower type husk.

This is another flower type of husk.

Some husks are more leaf like.

This is another picture of a leafy husk.

Can you find the hazelnut in this picture with the small open husk?

This husk completely covers the nut and has small sticky hairs covering the husk. This type is harder to pick and remove the nut from the husk.

These hazelnuts are easily removed from the husks and some will even fall out of the husk when ripe.

This an enclosed husk from a wild hazelnut.

The husk incloses the whole nut and is more leafy. This type is hard to find on the plant when ripe.

This is a beaked hazelnut husk with the long husk inclosing the whole nut.  These beaked hazelnut husks also have the small sticky hairs covering the surface.  Note the long beaked like shape.

The husk on this nut is completely open and tends to dropout. This is probably the type of hazelnut you would want for a large orchard. I do know that squirrels prefer this one.

This leafy husk hazelnut is easy to pick and dries down fast to release the nut. I like these because they can be picked and laid out on drying racks in a safe place away from various kinds of rodents.