To grow hazelnuts from seed, they need to be stratified (undergo a period of cold temperature) in order to germinate. This can be done in two ways. You can just plant the hazelnuts outside in the fall and let nature do the work for you, or to get a jump-start on growing, you can store the nuts in the fridge for about 1-2 months and plant them indoors. There are many ways to store them. Recently we have tried putting the nuts in ziploc bags with damp moss and stored them for about 2 months. That seemed to work fairly well. After a period of cold termpatures, the nuts can be warmed up and planted. All the nuts were planted in a sandy potting soil mix and set under grow lights.
We planted lots of nuts in a variety of containers.
This was about a month after taking them out of cold storage. (April, 2014)
Planting them early will give you a jump-start on growth. Otherwise if they are planted directly outside, these seeds wouldn't germinate and pop above ground until June.
We had over 200 of these seedlings this spring. We have started selling them, since we have run out of room to plant them. These seedlings are selected from the plants with the best qualities. However, they are open pollinated, so they could end up with a variety of characteristics. We hope to try more clonal propagation techniques this year, and be able to start selling clones of the best plants.
We still have about 40 more seedlings left for sale.
They are $5 per plant.
Contact us at riverbendhazelnuts@gmail.com for more information.
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