Another busy year, 2018
The nuts here germinated in 3 days after being stratified for 3 months in the refrigerator.
The stratification process involves soaking the seed to rehydrate and then placing in damp peat in plastic bags at 34º F to 40ºF for 1 to 4 months. When ready to start the germination process they are place in a covered container with damp paper towels and kept at room temperature. They are checked daily to see if they are sprouting.
When the nuts crack and the radical begins as shown in the picture, they are then planted in tubes.
The plants in this picture are about a week old.
These are the same plants that are now 2 weeks old.
The plants here have been moved outside and are now 3 months old, and ready for sale.
If your interested contact me at, (riverbendhazelnuts@gmail.com)
Hand pollinating
Every year I hand pollinate some of my best plants and wanted to show the process I use to collected the pollen.
This first picture is showing a catkin which is the male flower that has been on the hazelnut plant since last fall.
When the catkin begins to elongate, they are removed and brought in side.
They are then placed in a warm location on a white sheet of paper for 24 hours.
The yellow dust in this picture is the pollen that has been released from the catkin.
The next step is to carefully shake and remove all the catkins until just the pollen is left on the paper.
Then the paper is folded and gently tap to fill a vial.
These are the vials of pollen from my best plants that I plan on pollinating.
Here we have the female flower (stigmas) protruding from the hazelnut bud. The flower is rather small and some times hard to find.
To pollinate the stigmas I shake the vial to coat the end of my finger with pollen.
I then gently rub the pollen from my finger on to the stigmas.
After the flowers have been pollinated a bag is then placed back over the branch to prevent pollination from other plants.
With the cool spring this year the hand pollinating of the stigmas which usually is done the first two weeks in March was delayed until 30 of April. I usually have a week to hand pollinate the female flowers, but this year I had 2 days before the buds began to swell and cover the stigmas. It will be interesting to know how many hand pollinated followers will develop into nuts because of the late flowering and the bud swelling and covering the stigmas in just a couple days. It appears that the stigmas do not fully appear until there are two consecutive warm days about 60ºF, and some have turned brown when the temperature dropped below 28ºF.
Nut production might be a little low this year. I'll give an update on my next report.
The plants here are 4 years old, and as you can see not all are leafed out yet.
The plants in the garden tends to have a warmer micro climate inside the fence with full sun.
The 2 year old plants here are more protected and slightly more leafed out.
The term location, location rings true here.
This is a close up of the 2 year plants, and you can now see some are just starting to leaf out.
This is a picture of the orchard were the mature plants have no protection, and have just started to leaf out.
I'm wondering with almost a months delay before the plants green up if that will affect the size and taste of the nuts?
The big question I have is will this be the normal spring for the up coming years.
😬