Hazelnut Harvest 2018

The hazelnut harvest this year has been a little hectic with 50 more plants producing nuts.

My grandson Blake and his buddy Bobby helping with harvest.

This year each hazelnut plant produced about half as many nuts as last year.  It must have been our unusual spring weather this year.

These are some of the nuts from that hazelnut plant.

Here we have hazelnuts from a different plant. This plant last year produced 2 of these bags full of hazels. 

Close up of the leafy type husk and nut.

These nuts are also ready to be picked. I test them by opening the husk and rolling the nut out with my thumb, if the nut rolls out easily they are ready to be picked.

The husks are then placed on drying racks until the nut drops out easily, and

 separated and cleaned using an aspiration system.

The cleaned nuts are then tagged and placed in mesh bags.

I have drying racks stacked every where.

I'm trying to use everything for drying racks including these modified cone trays to dry down the husks before they get moldy.

A close-up of the nuts on the drying rack.

These are some of the nuts from that last photo.

The different sized nuts from this years harvest.

This was an interesting nut found in a single husk. It looks like three nuts stuck together.

Japanese Beetle Damage

These are Japanese beetles as they attack hazelnut leaves again this year at my son's place in Lino Lakes MN.

As you can see they defoliate the leaves but the husk and nut are not damaged.  This has happened every year for the past 3 year and it seem to be reducing the amount of nuts the plant will produce.

The beetle defoliated almost the entire top to the hazelnut. This makes harvest a little easier.

He has set up a Japanese beetle trap in his front yard. 

With the help of my grandson Blake and Nancy, we are almost finished. Just three hazelnut plants to go for the 2018 harvest.