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Intercropping Chestnuts and Hazelnuts

 
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Hi!

I have spent a lot of time searching around but I have not yet found guidance for intercropping Chestnuts and Hazelnuts.

I have about an acre of an old hay field that I would like to make a small nut grove. Does anyone have any experience and/or suggestions for plant spacing to ecourage these two plants to grow in harmony? I anticipate it might be rows of Chestnuts with a hazelnut hedge in between.

Thanks so much!
 
gardener
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Location: the mountains of western nc
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i suspect it would be best to think of the hazels as a temporary (if somewhat longer term) part of the system - when full grown, a chestnut orchard is frequently on 60 foot centers, and not leaving a lot of light for things like hazels. but it takes quite a while for the chestnuts to get to that point…maybe starting with ~20 feet between the chestnuts, you’ll get a few years of hazel production before you need to decide if you’re cutting some chestnuts (which should also have been producing for a while at that point) to leave room for the hazels or removing (or ‘letting go’) the hazels in favor of the chestnuts. starting with 20’ centers in the chestnuts, you’ll probably be thinning them anyway before long, but you can get better production in the shorter term with a slightly tighter starting spacing.
 
Matthew Baldiga
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Ok! Thanks so much for the thought. That makes perfect sense to me.  
 
pollinator
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Our woodland is mixed chestnut and hazel. They grow very well together for timber harvest, but not well for nuts.

Chestnuts need to grow to maturity to set a good nut crop, at which point they create a dense canopy and lots of shade. The hazel doesn't do well under shade.

Here our woods are traditionally managed with coppicing, which prevents a fully closed canopy and limits the number of mature trees.

If I were planning a nut grove as you describe, I would plan for comparatively few chestnuts, with large spacing. You want to aim for 30% or less canopy coverage, for the hazel to thrive. You can plant a bit more densely initially, and then thin any chestnuts that are doing less well.

Hazel does well at a dense planting. Stools close together strive for the light, and produce a secondary product of nice straight poles for us in the garden. Hazel needs to be coppiced periodically down to ground level. This prolongs the lifespan of the whole plant. If they are not coppiced, the whole stool tends to collapse apart under the weight of the timber. If you are planting a sufficiently large area, you could coppice 1/3 every 5 years or so, so that you always have some regenerating, some fruiting, and some maturing.

Make sure you look into varieties that are known to set good nuts in your region. Our climate here in the southern UK is marginal for chestnuts, which prefer warmer climates with longer growing seasons. Probably one year in 3 we get a good yield of nuts. In other years autumn closes in before the nuts have matured to a worthwhile size to collect.
 
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If your looking to grow large tall chestnut trees you will need to plant a faster growing a soft wood trees as they will need some competition.  
 
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