What a strange Spring! Warm, wet then cold with more snow in April.
This is the normal snow melt in March with the ground still frozen and the hazelnut plants along the ditch are under water. This is quite different than last year when the ditch never had any water in it.
On the 14th of April the catkins (male flowers) began to elongate and shed their pollen.
On the 15th of April the Stigmas (female flowers) began to appear on the buds.
That night temperature dropped to 15ยบ F and stayed cold with highs in the low thirties. This it what it looked like on 17th of April.
It will be interesting to find out how hardy the hazelnuts are during flowering.
This is that same flower 4 days later with temps in the teens and twenties, and still looking good. The temperature is going to remain cool the next few days and I have not seen any of the catkins release their pollen yet.
On this plant the red sigmas are the little red dot on the end of the bud.
This is another plant with the female flower has emerged about half way out of the bud.
I like this picture showing a closeup of a catkin that has elongated, and if you look in the back ground you can just make out the red female flower starting to appear.
Every spring I check each plant for the dreaded fungal disease EFB ( Eastern Filbert Blight) which will gradually kill the whole plant.
I usually find a few plants with EFB which I remove or cut the infected stems down to the ground.
If that plant produces a good tasting large round nut, I will just remove the infected stems and all the catkins (male flowers). I will try to hand pollinate these plants, if I have the time, with a hazelnut that's resistant to EFB.
I'm finding fewer plants every year that seem to be susceptible to EFB so my process of eliminating the infected plants seems to be working.
