Steve -Nuts ;-)

Hi Steve
Is it best for Hazel Nut production to let the trees get as big as possible or to coppice regularly ?
What machine do you recommend for nut oil production ?

David

And could you touch on propagation or increasing the number of bushes.

Yes please to both questions. I am growing hazels on my 1/8th acre and this information would be very handy.

Also can hazels be used like acorns for breads and such? I like to know all the different things I could make with my nuts.

I look forward to the answers too! I have planted one American and one hybrid. I assume they would be treated equally.

What about renovating older hazelnuts?

I'm adopting a twenty-year old nut grove with hazels, pecans, heartnuts, and they have not been producing nuts of late. I suspect this is related to pruning to have younger branches, but any insights would be very useful. They have not had a good crop (so I hear) for about 7 years, so I don't think it's only related to biennial baring issues.

Hi folks:

Wow, lots of dimensions to explore in this thread. While I am a huge fan of nuts, I'm not the nut expert. My friend Phil Rutter at Badgersett in MN is coming out with a handbook on hazelnut cultivation through Chelsea Green (same publisher as us). It is expected to release in January. http://www.chelseagreen.com/bookstore/item/growing_hybrid_hazelnuts

I believe coppice rotations for hazelnut are around 7 - 10 years. Much care should be taken in their establishment. They are best planted as a hedgerow, rather than spacing the shrubs far apart.

As for uses, I am most fascinated with Phil's "chestnut polenta" - see the video we've posted at: http://farmingthewoods.com/media/

hope this helps!

Steve

How many years does it take to get nuts after planting hazelnuts?

gary: a rough estimate of 3-7 years before first nuts. Some would be more precocious, producing in year 2 even. Seven years would be for more wild stock that had not been selected for good cropping possibilities. If you get a choice about where you get your stock, look for breeding programs where they are selecting for early crops, pest and blight resistance, large size, easy crackability. Examples in the US I am aware of are Mark Shepard's ForestAg nursery, and Oikos Tree Crops. In Canada: Grimo Nut Nursery, Green Barn Nursery.

Steve Gabriel wrote:Hi folks:

Wow, lots of dimensions to explore in this thread. While I am a huge fan of nuts, I'm not the nut expert. My friend Phil Rutter at Badgersett in MN is coming out with a handbook on hazelnut cultivation through Chelsea Green (same publisher as us). It is expected to release in January. http://www.chelseagreen.com/bookstore/item/growing_hybrid_hazelnuts

Ordered! Thanks for mentioning this.

Here in the UK hazel/cob nuts have been harvested for generations, going back to the early post-iceage settlers.

Ray Mears did a series of programs exploring the wild foods our ancestors may have hunted/gathered. In one episode he experimented with cooking cobnuts by burying them in a layer of sand of approx 1 inch and having a small hot fire above them. He described the cooking as transformative making them buttery and delicious, compared to the drying slightly astringent raw nuts. They were able to eat more of them at a sitting and enjoy them in quantity, and a batch that were cooked appeared to last months before spoiling, compared to weeks for raw green nuts.

Hazel is easy to propagate by layering. Take a young stem and bend it down to lay flat on the ground. Slit the soil with a spade and pop the stem into the slit so it is buried. You can make a simple tent peg type arrangement using another piece of hazel at a notched fork to hold the stem in place. Leave the leafy far end of the stem exposed so it keeps growing. Over a few months the stem will root and you can cut it away from the parent plant.

Hey folks:

Keep in mind that we have an abundance of the Eastern Filbert Blight (http://plantclinic.cornell.edu/factsheets/filbertblight.pdf) in North America. This means that it is lethal to the European Hazels (Corylus avellana) which have larger nut production in terms of size and volume. Thus, commercial production in the US was largely stunted as it tried to take a hold. The European variety lacks the cold hardiness of the American hazel (Corylus americana) and so many breeders are working on and offering hybrids as a balance to the hardness + blight resistance.

Phil Rutter interestingly showed me his hybrids that were still getting hit with blight, yet because his plants were so vigorous, he actually saw it as a partial "benefit" - the blight tended to thin out the weaker stems.

Steve