Hazelnut Harvest 2019

Fall 2019 and just finished another harvest.

I'm often asked, "how do you know if they're ripe and ready to be picked?"

On some plants when the husk starts to change color to a darker tone it's a good indication that they are close to being ready.

Another indication is when the nut turns a dark brown as shown in this picture.

On this plant the juicy husk begins to dry up and change color.

This hazelnut husk has no color change, but it still might be ready.

On this picture I'm checking for a little darkening of the nut.

The next step is to try to roll out the nut with your thumb.

If the nut rolls out easily it is ready to be picked. 

I do this in 3 or 4 locations on the plant to make sure the whole plant can be picked.

This is that same plant after all the nut clusters have been removed.

Each of these mature hazelnut plants usually fill a bag like this one.

The next step is drying and removing the husk.

Every one of my plants is a little different, and on this plant the nuts drops out of the husk when ripe.  To pick this one I lay a tarp on the ground and just shake the stem letting the nuts fall on the tarp. The biggest problem is not all the nuts are ripe and ready to fall at the same time, so I have to shake the plant every day for a week until all the nuts are gone.

These are pictures of hazelnuts that may look like they are ready to

pick but they are not, because they failed the roll out test.
If they were picked at this time the husk will never release the nut even when dried down.

Another question I'm often asked is "How do you pick the nuts when they are on tall stems which might be over 15 feet?"

Hazelnuts have very flexible stems which can be easily bent down as show above.

I lay down a tarp then bend the stem and shake it. This will drop about half the nut clusters on the tarp and the rest will have to be picked by hand.

The next step is drying down the husk so the nut can be removed.
 I first place them on drying racks for a few days and then in mesh bags when the husk is completely dry.  After harvest I will run them through a separation and cleaning process.

In this picture you can see how drying down the hazelnuts took over my whole green house.

These are a few that have been cleaned, tagged, and bagged.

Next step evaluation.

Few interesting things this year 

I was surprised to see nuts growing on one of my layered clones that I just planted this spring.

While visiting the Aneta Community Orchard, I thought these where my hazelnuts but Bill Miller later informed me that they were from St. Lawrence Nursery and the ones Bill got from me were in a different part of the Orchard.

Bill Miller has done a great with the Community Orchard and if anyone is in the Aneta area they should stop and take a tour of the orchard.

I also visited Greg Krieger's home where he was showing me the nuts on this hazelnut plants that he had purchased from me. We also looked at his many other plants and fruit trees. We enjoyed sampling  the fruit from his apple and pear trees.

These are hazelnut clones from green cuttings that Jim Walla propagated.

This is something that I thought couldn't be done but Jim propagated these 15 from one of my superior plants. I'm just amazed at the things he does.

Now it's my job to harden them off and see if they make the winter.

This is my favorite T-shirt that I received on my birthday from my daughter Kelsey.

Thanks Kelsey😏👍

Well, it looks like fall when the wild hazelnut starts to change color.

This plant is my first hazelnut that I planted in 1979 from Albert Lee's farm in Northern Minnesota  near Roseau.  

Squirrel devastation

Squirrels have started removing the hazelnuts on 19th of July. This is the earliest that I've ever seen them go after immature hazelnuts.

I have 5 live traps and 4 rat traps and started using my pepper spray.  In less then a week I removed 11 squirrels.

I've even seen the smaller red squirrels hanging from the branches eating the unripe nuts.

The larger grey squirrels finish off the ones that fall on the ground.

This is what it looked like the first day that I noticed the problem.

The next day really took me by surprise and I thought this may be really serious, so I mixed up my pepper spray and bought some more traps.

This is the pepper spray recipe I use for my squirrel deterrent, but now I started adding 4 cloves of garlic with the peppers in the food processor.

Hot Pepper Spray for Squirrel Deterrent 

(WEAR GLOVES! Goggles aren't a bad idea either)

Red Cayenne, Jalapeno, or habanero fresh peppers (cayenne for stronger mix)

Put 3 Peppers in a food processor with enough water to make a liquid.
Strain through cheesecloth into a quart jar
Add 2 tablespoons Olive/Vegetable oil
Squirt of Elmer's glue
2 drops liquid dish-soap

Use 1 part of mixture to 10 parts water

Shake well
Spray on plant with spray bottle.

(Don't make it any strong then 30%)
Be careful not to get this in your eyes.

The new crop of hazelnuts 

This is some of the new crop protected by the pepper spray.

This is a large leafy hazelnut husk that usually matures the end of September.

I'll have to spray once a week to keep the squirrels off this plant.

This is another one of my better plants that ripens around August 18th.

On this plant the nut tends to drop out of the husk in the first week of September.

This is another one of the better plant that will have to spay to keep the squirrels away.

I just noticed a weevil hole on the husk which I've circled. Just one more pest to deal with.

This plant has a large juicy husk that squirrels do not like, but the nut is also hard to remove when ripe.

This is another one that squirrels tend to not like.

This is one that squirrels really tend to go for so I'll have to spray this one.

This is not one of my better plants, but I like the unusual look of the husk.

Field day at the Carrington REC

During the field day at Carrington REC, Kathy Wiederholt showed a row of my hazelnuts that they are testing in their  hardy fruit evaluation project.

This is a close up of some of the developing nuts at Carrington REC.

This hazelnut plant that Kathy showed here has very large clusters of nuts. 

It looked like there might be 8 or more nuts in each cluster, which some times makes it hard to remove the nuts from the husk. I prefer no more then 4 nuts in a cluster.

This is another type of hazelnut in the same row, which just has singles and no more then 2 in each cluster. This type of plant is usually easier to remove the nut from the husk.

I would like to thank Kathy Wiederholt, fruit project manager in Carrington, for doing such a great job evaluating all the different types of hardy fruits that will grow in this area.

New Greenhouse & New Crop for 2019

The new greenhouse😎

The greenhouse arrived in a truck and had to be unloaded by hand, because the load on the pallet was a little unstable.  

I'm anxious to start using the greenhouse to dry the hazelnuts this fall and to use it to start new seedlings in the spring. 

I might even be able to keep my tomatoes growing until December.

Unloading went fast, but now its time to identify all the different parts.

Assembling all the parts was supposed to take a day, but it took us a week.

I would like to thank everyone for their help.

 This years crop, 2019

The new nuts look like small green flowers at this point.

I do not really know how large this years crop is, because they match the green foliage so well.

There are quite a few new hazelnuts on this picture. Can you find them, look hard.

Some of the good traits I'm looking for are 4 nuts in each cluster, as shown here in this picture.

Some cluster have as many as 8 or more nuts.

These larger clusters always produce smaller sized nuts that are hard to remove from the husk.

Some plants just produce a single nut that has a larger size, but the quantity of fruit per plant is low.

I try to propagate plants that have 2 to 4 nuts in each cluster.

This plant shown here will only have one or two nuts in each cluster.

This one has a cluster of 5 nuts. I thought of eliminating this plant, but it produces a nice crop of medium sized good tasting nuts every year.

This is a cluster of nuts is from a Beaked Hazelnut (Corylus corneta).

I had to hand pollinate this plant because it flowers a week later then the hybrid hazelnuts.

The nuts here will be a cross between Beaked and my hybrid hazelnuts.

The beaked hazels are smaller nut with a very thin shell. I crossed it with a hybrid that produces large nuts in hopes of getting a larger thinner shell nut.

I also hand pollinate several other hazels to produce a larger better tasting nut.

I flagged this branch to indicate that it was bagged this spring and hand pollinated. 

I'm also cloning plants using the layering method. This particular plant takes 2 years to clone. I've have a fence around the plants so the deer and rabbits won't clip the new plants off.

Over the years I've tried grafting hazelnut plants, but was unsuccessful.

This year I tried it again and this might my first successful graft.

These plants are hand pollinated 3 years old hybrid hazels about 4 feet high and should have a few nuts this year.  They did flower this spring, but I've only found just a few nuts starting. Next year they should produce much larger crop.

The Black Walnut in the back ground was planted the same time as the hazels.

I want to find out if the Black Walnut affects the growth of the hazelnut plants. So far I don't see any difference in the growth of the plants by the Black Walnut.

I still have lots of seedling left for sale.

This year people are buying more of the older plants.

The 1, 2, & 4 year old plants are all sold out, but I do have a few 3 year old plants left for sale.

2019-Growing Hazelnuts

Germinating hazelnuts

The first step for growing new plants is evaluating each hazelnut seed for various characteristics such as good taste, thin shell, round shape, ease of cracking and separating the shells, and type of plant that  produced the nut, such as non-suckering.

After evaluating each one the superior hazelnut seed is then stratified (a period of cold temperatures), which is needed in the germination process. 

The first step in the stratification process is to soak the nut for 12 to 24 hours to rehydrate the nut and remove any empty nuts that are floating on top of the water.  They are then put in plastic zip lock bags with damp peat moss. The peat helps reduce mold and fungus from growing.

The nuts need at least 4 weeks of temperatures between 34º F - 40º F to germinate. If the temperature falls below 32º F the stratification period stops.

I usually refrigerate the nuts starting the last week in December and remove them in March.

This is the first year I've had some of my new varieties germinate in the fridge in February, which is very unusual for hazelnuts. I'm hoping it's a new hardier variety.

The hazelnut seeds are removed from the fridge and soaked in 80º F water with a weak bleach solution for 5 minutes, and placed between damp paper towels in plastic trays.

For the hazelnut seeds to germinate the temp must be above 50º F.

I try to maintain a temp between 65º F to 70º F.

In 2 to 3 days the shell will crack and the radicle will begin to appear.

They are then planted slightly under the soil in tubes with the radicle pointing down.

In 5 to 10 days the stem (hypocotyl) will begin to appear in the tubes. 

At this time the temp is lowered to 60º F.

The plants here are now 2 weeks old and have their primary leaves.

At this period a small fan is used during the day to produce a thicker shorter stem.

This plants here are 2 months old and at this time they are gradually moved outside.

Not this year yet with all the snow and cold temps.

Hazelnuts 2019

The 3 year hazelnut plants here are just starting to show under the melting snow.

These plants were covered in leaves last fall in anticipation of little or no snow.

With the high snow cover the rabbits were able to hop over the 4 ft fence.

In this picture of the 4 yr hazelnuts you can see the rabbit damage on the top of the plants which indicates how high the snow had been.

These are the 4 year old hand pollinated hazelnuts in the orchard.

I'm hoping some will produce nuts  this year.

Last year at this time the plants were flowering and leafing out.

Here we have some of the older plants that are under water.

In some years they've been like this for at least 2 weeks.

Hazelnuts plants ready for sale.

If your interested contact me at,

riverbendhazelnuts@gmail.com