2025 Another early Spring

This has been the earliest Spring flowering I have recorded

March 15, 2025

The middle of March was unusually warm.  The temperature was above 50º F for several days, which caused the catkins (male flowers) to elongate and release their pollen. The big problem was that there were no female flowers to pollinate. I began to collect catkins and save the pollen to hand pollinate as many female flowers as possible when they appeared. 

3 weeks later on the 6th of April the female flowers began to appear at the end of the buds.

If you look close you can see the reddish flower on the end of the bud.

I was concerned about the lack of pollen for the female flowers, so I began hand pollinating my best plants.

One interesting thing I did notice is the wild American Hazelnuts did not release its pollen or produce female flowers until the middle of April. 

I'm wondering if the hybrid plants need less chilling hours than the wild American plants to flower.

Chilling hours are the number of hours during winter when the temps are between 32º F and 45º F.

This would also explain last year's early release of pollen from the hybrid hazelnut plants. 

This is one I pollinated and it did produce quite a few nuts. 

This hazelnut plant also flowered early and only produce one or two nuts.

It has in the past produced a good crop every year but this last one.

Deer Damage

A buck had damaged this stem last fall and I thought it did not look too bad, but I was wrong.

It produced small leaves and small nuts.

I should have removed any stems that has this type of damage.

The small leaves are from the damaged stem, and the larger leaves are the normal size leaves of the same plant.

These 2 pictures show the size of the developing nuts on a different stems on the same plant.

The top picture is from the damaged stem.

I'm going to try to remove any old or damaged stems on my best plants, which should produce better and larger nuts.

4th of July

These 3 pictures show that most nuts reach their maximum size on the first week in July, but the kernel in side is still small and contains mostly water.

In August the kernel is full size, but still contains mostly water.

The water is replaced by oil the last week when it is maturing.

When picked too early the kernel has a low oil content and when dried down will look like a raisin.

I think the hardest part is keeping the squirrels away during this period of time. 

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July 12

It's only the middle of July and the squirrels have started on the hazelnuts.

This is the earliest I have seen this much damage.

I found the culprit but I think he has a few buddies.

His buddies showed up the next day and did more damage.

I'll just have to be on my toes and remove as many tree rats as I can catch.

The new hazelnut plants

This is one of new hazelnut seedlings.

The nut can be see at the bottom of the stem.

I usually remove the nut before moving them outside, because squirrels will pull the plant out and eat the nut. I left the nut on this seedling to determine if the plant grows faster and larger. To deter the squirrels I had to cage this plant.

There was very little difference between the plants with the attach nut and the plants that I had removed the nuts. I decided it was easier to remove the nut on the seedling and not have to cage the plant. 

This is a seed grafted clone. This plant was grafted on a newly germinated seed.

Hazelnuts tend to sucker up if the main stem is damaged, so I used a seed from a plant that has almost no suckers.  So far it's looking good.

These are all layered cloned plants that were removed from the parent plant this spring and they are all looking good.

This newly cloned plant even developed nuts.

The layered cloning process begins when suckers are about the size of the thickness of a pencil. They are then girdled by using a twist tie or a hog-ring pliers at the bottom of the stem. The next step is applying rooting hormone at that location and covering with 8 to 12 inches of compost. They will root just above the twist tie and the newly rooted clone can be removed the following spring.

I should mention that this plant never produced suckers until a buck deer broke off the top of the plant last fall.

Here we have more layered clones for next spring.

One thing to remember is to never let them dry out or they will callus but never produce any roots.

1st of September

Mid Harvest

When the husk starts to turn a darker color and the nut rolls out of the husk, it's time to pick that plant.

There are so many different varieties of hazelnut plants that each plant has to be checked for maturity of the nut.  What makes even more difficult is that the nuts on one plant may not all be ready to pick at the same time.  The nuts on the sunny side of the plant are ready about 2 days ahead of the shaded side.

These hazelnuts drops out of the husk when mature, which makes it a little difficult because one day it's on the plant and the next day they're on the ground.

This particular plant is favored by the squirrels with its thin shell and just laying on their dinner plate.

Here are some hazelnuts I've just picked.

The whole cluster is removed easily from the plant and when the cluster is dried down the nuts are easily removed from the husk. 

These nuts have just been picked to make sure this plant has mature nuts and that they are easily removed from the husk. The nuts are checked in a couple places to make sure they are all ready to be picked.

Here is another plant that might have mature nuts.

Yes, this plant is ready to be picked.

This is may look like it's ready to be picked but the nut was hard to remove from the husk.

If the plant were picked now it would have a lower oil content.

Just a little reminder that the oil is replacing the water the last few days before maturity.

Every plant produces different amount of nuts, but this plant has produced 1 or even 2 bags of nuts every year.

After picking the clusters of nuts I immediately put them on my make-shift drying racks.

This is done to allow the hazelnut weevil larva to bore out and drop into the trays below.

It only takes about 2 hours for that larva to emerge from the nut.

I use this method to try to control the hazelnut Weevil.

It only takes a couple of days in the green house with fans to dry down the husk and remove the nut.

Being in the green house will also protect the nuts from squirrels and mice.

After drying and removing the weevil larva the nuts are placed in mesh bags until I have time to process them.

A few interesting things I found during harvest was this Shaggy Mane mushroom.

It is edible but I didn't dare to try it.

I also found a couple of these Hummingbird nests which really looked interesting.

Also during harvest I check for catkins. These are the male flowers that will release their pollen next spring.  Multiple catkins as shown in the picture are more closely related to the European hazelnuts and the plants with single catkins are more closely related to the American hazelnuts.

Some things that I do not like during harvest is finding a plant with EFB (Easter filbert blight).

EFB will devastate a good hazelnut plant in about 3 years.

The plants with EFB are usually removed and burned.

I'm trying to grow varieties that are more resistant to this fungal disease.

2025 Fall Colors 

A few of the hazelnuts in the orchard do produce a nice reddish color.

At the bottom of the picture is a hazelnut plant has darker reddish color leaves.

The tree in the background with the golden leaves is a Shagbark hickory. 

I thought the contrasting colors look better in person.

This fall I noticed catkins on my 1 yr layered clones, which could mean they will produce nuts next year.

I not only found one layered clone but several plants with catkins

  

 

Winter 2025

I just could not believe this, the winter just started and the rabbits are already going after my plants.

It really pays to cage your plants.

Here are few of the new 1, 2, and 3 year old plants.

I've noticed the some of the hand pollinated 3 year plants have catkins and I'm excited to find out what type of nut these plants will produce.

Lake Metigoshe State Park

We were camping in Lake Metigoshe State Park and found hazelnuts on both sides of the trail.

I just could not believe all the hazelnuts everywhere.

Most of the hazelnuts were Beaked Hazelnuts (Corylus cornuta).

These are considered hardier than the American Hazelnut.

I have several of these in my orchard, and I've been crossing them with my hybrid hazelnuts.

The plants did produce but nuts, but none would germinate.

The two species of hazelnut flower about 2 weeks apart so every flower has to be hand pollinated. 

I'm trying to show a Beaked hazelnut catkin, but you have to look very closely just about my hand.

We both wish you a Merry Christmas and great New Year!

A Strange Year 2024

Bats in the hazelnuts

I don't mind bats but when picking hazelnuts and your hand comes close to touching one, I jump back swinging my arms. This has happened a couple times, so now I call it the bat dance.

Seed grafting

Jim Walla gave me these grafting clips to try on my seed grafting trials. By April 19 I had only germinated 3 seeds from the seed stock that I planned to use for grafting. The grafting clips worked great and they were much easier then trying to wrap them with ParaFilm around a small stem. Grafting on newly germinated seed is very small work and neither my eyes or hands are as good as they used to be.  

The seed grafts on May 1st and looking good.

These 2 pictures are same grafted seedlings this fall after leaf drop. I just could not believe the catkins on these plants.  They should be removed to let the plant grow for another year or more before fruiting, but I was so curious to see if these plants would flower and have nuts on next summer.

Spring flowering

This spring was very unusual with temps around 50º F in the first 2 weeks in March. I think one day it was almost 60º.  The hazelnuts began to flower, which usually happens around April 15.

The picture above is the catkins (male flowers) beginning to elongate and release pollen.

On this picture you can see the the red female flower appear from the bud. The red female flowers are not very big and one has to look hard to find them. They appear later after the catkins have expanded and started to release pollen.

This is what the hazelnuts looked like on March 14th before the big freeze.

A few days later this is what they looked like with temps never getting above freezing.

This picture was taken on March 27th with the temperature of 18º F

I was hoping some of flowers had been pollinated before the temperature dropped.

After the cold temperature the female flowers on the end of a buds look black.

I read that this not good and the flower will drop off when the leaves appear.

Before the cold snap I collected catkins to cross pollinate some of my best plants.

The elongated catkins are laid out on paper until they release their pollen.

I then shake the catkins and remove them from the paper.

 

The paper is folded and the pollen is tapped into a small vial.

I keep the small vial in the fridge until I see the female flowers appear on the buds.

 

After the big freeze on May 1st the temperature began to warm up and I noticed some flowers begin to appear lower down on the shaded side of the hazelnut plants.

I began to hand pollinate by removing the cover of the vial and tipping it over on to my finger.

The next step is to rub that pollen onto this small red flower on the end of the bud.

These are some of the hand pollinated nuts.

There is always something new every year. This is the first year that I've had Sapsucker (woodpecker) damage on hazelnut stems. I counted damage on 8 different hazelnuts. The leaves on these plants were small and the nuts were the size of peas.

I used Tree Tanglefoot on these stems and the Sapsucker disappeared.

Harvest 2024 is not looking good.

Most of the hybrid hazelnuts only had a hand full of nuts, but the wild American hazelnuts (Corylus Americana) had a fair crop. This is my opinion but I think the hybrid hazelnuts tend to bloom earlier than the wild hazelnuts. The wild American hazelnuts seem to be better adapted to our northern climate which is something I hope to pass on to the hybrid hazelnuts. 

It also could be location whether in full sun, shade, exposed to wind or in an area with no wind.

Hazelnuts from each plant are in separated drying racks.

They will be dried down until the husk can be removed from the nut.

This may look like a lot of hazelnuts but after the husks are removed and weevil damaged nuts taken out there are not many left.

The nuts with the husk removed are then placed in separate labeled bags.

As you can see there are not many nuts from each plant. 

This hazelnut plant had a few more nuts.

This years crop was poor, so picking went fast and I had time to evaluate each plant. It gave me time to decide which plants I will keep or remove.  

Every year I always have problems with weevils. I loose about 10% or more to weevils

I try to pick all the nuts on one plant then dry them on racks with trays underneath to catch the weevils.

I have found that more and more weevils are leaving the nuts before they're picked.

This is a picture from a couple years ago when I picked a lot more nuts.

This year the Black Walnuts and Oaks had no nuts or acorns.

I had to fight for every hazelnut from these pests.

 Camping Trip

We were camping at McCarthy Beach State Park in Minnesota and I found lots of Beaked Hazelnuts (Corylus Cornuta).

I found it strange that I could not find any wild American Hazelnuts in the park.

While camping we spent one day biking on the Mesabi Trail. 

We had a great day on the trail and I could not believe all the American Hazelnuts.

This is a couple pictures of the hazelnuts we saw on the Mesabi Trail.

Fall Colors

This year we seemed to have a long fall with more red and orange colors on lots of the hazelnut plants.

This year I was late putting up cages to protect against deer.

This buck had a great time on one of my best cloned plants.

This buck tore up several hazelnut plants in one night.

I was hoping this buck would disappear during hunting season.

I was wrong he is still here after hunting season and doing more damage.

I think during hunting season he stays close to all the homes in the area with bird feeders. Something has been emptying our bird feeder almost every night.

Here a close up of that same deer from my trail-cam.

Pecans

My Northern Pecans are looking good.

I should have nuts in 2055, can't wait.

Chicken of the woods

Look what I found in my hazelnut orchard. This mushroom is called chicken of the wood and was growing on an old Ash stump.

I really like this mushroom and can't wait to cook them up.

These are a few of the hazelnut seedlings I had for sale.

This is the first time I'm sold out of all the potted plants.

Hope your year was as interesting as mine, remember there is always something new next year.