Propagating hazelnuts 2020

Seedlings 2020

These are seedlings that I started on the 26-Feb-2020. The seedlings are usually started the first week in March, but I wanted to try germinating some the last week in February to see if there are any advantage to starting them a little earlier.

These were started the first week in March, and it looks like most will be up in a week.

Here is a close-up of the some more seedlings.

I have a red leafed hazelnut (Rosita Filbert) that was just bought from Sheyenne Gardens in February. The tag list it as Zone 3-9 from Oregon State University, but OSU lists the hardness Zone as 5a-8b. Adam Volz from Sheyenne Gardens had already informed me that it was not hardy in this area, and the tag was wrong, but I couldn't pass up those red leaves. 

It started blooming and leafing out, so I hand pollinated it with pollen from my hazelnut plants, which I had stored in the freezer. This plant is not hardy for our area, but it will be interesting to cross it with my hardy hybrid plants to try for a red leaf variety.

Rabbit Problems

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This is the first year that I've had major problems with rabbits. They manage to get through the fence the past 2 weeks and damage over 62 plants.

I've been checking the orchard all winter and most of the damage was just done the last week in February .

It looks like this year I will have a few less nuts to pick. 

Here is more damage, but this hazelnut plant is outside the orchard fence. This plant which is close to house and I can see it from the windows was chewed up in one night.

The fence consists of a 6 foot fence with 1 1/2 inch spaced wire with 2 feet of poultry fence (chicken wire) around the bottom.  As you can see in the picture the poultry fence is buried under 3 feet of snow, and the rabbits must be able to hop right through the deer fence.

This summer there will be 2 more feet of poultry fence added to the orchard's deer fence.

I also have some apple trees that where grown from seed and grafted with better types of apples.

They are completely fenced off and the trunks where wrapped 3 feet up. 

Somehow the rabbits got thought the fence and did this in one night.

There was one tree in the back that was not stripped, so I immediately wrapped it up another 3 feet.

The apple trees here where probably planted a little too close together but I was just using them to practice different grafting techniques. I had ten different types of apples grafted on these 15 year old trees. 

I had this special oak that I started from seed 5 years ago and that was stripped as well.

One interest thing is after checking the hazelnut orchard all winter is that I've never seen a one rabbit.

This is a Trader Mulberry from Jim Walla (Northern Tree Specialties).

Every plant around this tree was damaged including the spruce tree to the left but the rabbit did not even nibble on the mulberry. 

The tree was almost bent over and touching the ground after the heavy snow last fall, and it popped right back up after I shook off the snow. 

It looks like I might have to prune some of the lower branches this spring because that rabbit just wasn't up for it.

I'm really impressed by Jim's Trader mulberry, rabbit proof and unbreakable.

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