Hazelnuts South of 40 Degrees N Latitude

I am wondering if anyone has hazelnuts that produce well anywhere south of 40 degrees N latitude, especially the hybrid varieties? I have some in southern Missouri from Badgersett and from Oikos that are healthy looking plants, between 5 and 9 ft tall, that have had both male and female flowers, but no nuts at all. They are 4-6 years old, so I'm hoping they are just a little young and will still produce in the future, but I've seen and talked to others in similar latitudes that also have healthy looking but unproductive plants. I heard from someone in southern Indiana that had a dozen plants from Oikos, ten years old, that had grown fine but never produced. I visited a farm in eastern Kentucky with several hybrid hazelnuts that only occasionally produces small amounts of nuts. Wild hazelnuts grow in many of these same places and do produce nuts, but they're quite small.

I recently read Philip Rutter of Badgersett's book "Growing Hybrid Hazelnuts", which discusses many hazelnut problems but never once mentions healthy-looking plants that don't produce nuts. I searched extensively online and contacted a number of people working with hybrid hazelnut breeding. Most didn't relpy, and the ones that did are all up north so they don't have personal experience with southerly plantings. I still have yet to find any evidence of any plantings of hybrid hazels south of 40 degrees N latitude or so that are successfully productive. I had a few good email conversations with several nurseries (up north) one reporting they had known some other people who had hazelnut plantings further south that weren't productive, and one suggested that varieties of European filberts with filbert blight resistance may be a better bet, but there seemed to be a general paucity of knowledge regarding hazelnuts in the South and the lower Midwest. Badgersett didn't reply to me at all, and they were the ones that I really hoped would have some insight. Rutter's book portrays hazelnuts as being a great crop for a changing climate, and has a map that shows how many plants they've shipped to every state. There's a fair amount that has gone to more southerly areas, but no indication of how any of the plantings there have produced. If these northern-bred hazelnuts have issues in warmer climates, that would be important information to have, and it may become relevant to the northern growers too in terms of dealing with future climate change.

It has been brought up that pollination could be tricky in small plantings, that if they are too closely related, they won't pollinate each other. However, my nine hazels in Missouri are a mix of Badgersett and Oikos hazels, that are quite different genetically. I have seen a small planting of badgersett hazels up north (southern Minnesota) that produced just fine, and the plants were smaller than my Missouri ones. I think it may be just that these northern selsctions just aren't adapted to fruit in areas with warmer winters. One of mine has some female flowers on it right now (the male catkins are supposed to be present in the winter, dormant, but the tiny female flowers shouldn't open up until early spring. Wind hazelnuts grow and produce further south than here, so it's certainly possible, but as is the case with many plants, the breeding work and mass plantings have been in the north, with a paucity of information out there regarding the South and lower Midwest.

I'm hoping some people here south of 40 degrees latitude N have some hazels old enough to be producing and would be willing to share their experience, whether it's a success or failure, and what your sources for the plants were. I would love for hazels to work in this area, but it's been frustrating to not be able to find a single report of a productive planting of neohybrid hazels in the South or lower Midwest. If they consistently don't work in these areas, it would be nice to get the information out there so others can avoid planting bushes that won't produce.

Hi Richard-

I'm sorry to see no replies to your inquiry because I have many of the same questions you do - except I'm in Colorado. I have been attempting to learn about an unproductive group of 1500 plants in Colorado by the late John Cruickshank, to no avail. The Southern Oregon Permaculture Institute that has a memorial page for him has given me this response to my questions - "wrong climate". I just love terribly helpful answers like that. I am so interested in a successful small planting of these beasts that I am willing to go to heroic measures - special soils amendment, mycorrhizal fungi additions, massive soil ph changes, natural setting companion plantings, hand pollinating, etc. Please post any responses you get here. I'm very interested in hearing what others have to say.

For some insights, you may wish to try this place located in Arkansas:

http://www.agrilicious.org/Egan-Brothers-Vineyard-Orchard

I understand that you already put effort into the neohybrids from Badgersett, but sometimes that's all you can do is give such things a try and then move on. Yet I would not destroy what you have...if they shed pollen, they may still be a useful genetic resource for future outcrossing to more southerly adapted stock to which you already alluded.

http://www.pollenlibrary.com/map.aspx?map=Corylus-americana.png

I can't speak to hybrids, but I purchased some native hazelnuts that I planted the winter of '11-'12, so this past year was their 4th growing season since I bought them, and I'd say I got at least a half gallon of nuts (in the shell). This was their first year to produce (at least enough for me to notice.)

Where are you, Eric? Or what is your soil ph and how much moisture and cold weather, if you rather not say?

I'm in zone 7 North Carolina. Pretty typical Piedmont North Carolina soils and rainfall (right around 50"/year).

Thanks for the replies. It's interesting to hear others' experiences. I contacted Frank Egan in Arkansas (Thanks for the link John Weiland), his also are a young planting, here's his reply which he's fine with me posting here on this forum,

Hi Richard,

Would love to talk with you about this issue. Dunno whether I can help
as I'm in the same boat as you. No nuts...yet. Although the first year there
were a few but I whacked them in favor of putting energy into tree growth
rather than nuts.

My plantings were all done in 2012. Purchased from.....https://www.grimonut.com/index.php?p=Home
I don't see my varieties currently on his site but I spent $400/500+ for 13 trees. His trees were all layered.
They were Geneva, Grimo 186M and Slate. One died and the rest are doing just fair. Some better than
others. To be fair though, I have not been very diligent in there care i.e., zero fertilization. Even though I have
an extensive drip system, I haven't dripped them either. I have pruned every year to a tree rather than a bush.
I have usually a 45 day window for insect pressure. I use Surround WP with about 95% effectiveness.

I may be a real unobservant idiot and I'm embarrassed to say...I've don't recall ever seeing a female flower.
In fairness to me though......I have a boatload of issues with my many other crops. I will say that this year, I
have observed a huge increase in catkins (HUGE) over previous years. Normally, I am a soil testing maniac
and most usually I can do the chemistry analysis and apply as needed. This will be the year that everything
at the farm will get a major shot of ferts and minerals. Like in the next two weeks.

I also bought Grimo's book. Interesting but not much help for me.

We should talk further by phone. Would love to share anything I can with you.
Thanks for Permie URL. I read through it all. Please feel free to copy and paste
anything you wish from me to their site. Always glad to help kindred brothers and sisters.
Call anytime if you wish. We can probably cover a lot more ground.

Ken Asmus of Oikos Tree Crops in Michigan has given me the OK to reprint some of an interesting correspondence we had back in December, here's some of his input

The caliper of the canes or stems usually need to be 1 1/2 inches to 2 inches thick at the base. Once female flowers are produced then it will be 1-3 years before nut set. Sometimes nut set occurs in the second year after catkin formation. This is especially true with the American hazels. American hazelnut bushes produce much younger than the precocious and the canes are typically much smaller 1/2 inch in size with the plant will producing nuts in 3-4 years. Precocious hazels produce nuts in 3-5 years on average and produce nuts from seedling 1-3 years after the Americans do from seed. The more vigorous the plant, the sooner the yield.
But having said that, I am not sure why you or the others you contacted do not have nuts. Blaming everything on pollination is an easy go to place. I doubt it,but it is possible. I too wish I had more information to go on to give you an answer. I just have not heard that from others who have planted this strain.
Thank you for your email and best success to you with your hazelnuts.

One of my customers planted about 30 acres of hazelnuts near my farm and then moved away. That was amazing what came of that. Also there is a hazelnut breeder I met called Cecil Farris and he loved to talk about hazelnuts. He has a book that was published concerning his life long quest with hazels. He told me Kentucky, southern Indiana, and other farther south locations were not good for hazels because the flowering could occur in the middle of winter or very early spring. So the nuts do not set. He mentioned that one of his selections flowered in December. Very bad. So I think you are on to something. I have visited a lot of plantings over the years but really what do I know about these plantings in Iowa or Nebraska. Essentially nothing as I have only really looked at the ones in Michigan and some of those were planted over 60 years ago and then abandoned. Probably over time I will know more as in the last 2 years we have sold a lot of hazels and some are very big plantings. Most are from the northern states but a few in Illinois. Wait and see I guess.

Enjoyed your comments. I will check some of our older customers this winter and see what is any anecdotal evidence I can find. I know out west in dry hot climates can be a problem. I started a planting this last fall with fuzzy stemmed selections which I believe may be more drought and heat tolerant. The New Mexico attempts did not work

Have you guys tried going with pure Eastern American Hazelnuts? I know they're less productive than the Europeans or the Hybrids, but they are native to the region.

The following is going in the wrong direction, geographically speaking, but may be of use to the discussion. This website [ http://riverbendhazelnuts.blogspot.com/p/introduction.html ] describes breeding hazels from wild stock originally obtained from North Dakota and Minnesota. I may be wrong, but I think some Badgersett or other regional genetics have been mixed in with Riverbend's stock. At any rate, the goal was to get hazels that would do well in the North in the heavy clay of the region and produce more and larger nuts. Seems to be a work in progress.

My sister in Wisconsin (near Red Wing, MN) has had good success with Badgersett stock, but that would make sense as Badgersett material is adapted for southern MN. It may be that hazels are more sensitive to the flowering periods as described earlier and can't tolerate many of the chaotic spring temperature swings of the mid-western states. I did my graduate work at Oregon State (not on hazelnuts) in the middle of Oregon hazelnut country and can attest to the relative calm and predictability of the seasons as compared to the northern plains.

With continued contact with others both at regional universities and private breeders, you may come across some gems that would have you up and running with nuts in a moderately short time. Keep up the perseverence and sleuthing!.....

The range of native hazelnuts does go pretty far south, this webpage has a map,

Hazelnuts

We have a few here and there in the Ozarks. I'll sometimes gather them, they taste quite good but are small and typically not very productive (although sometimes I'll happen upon a loaded bush). The wild hazelnuts are great as a low-maintenance edible landscaping plant, but for commercially viability, larger, more productive bushes are needed. If none of the currently existing cultivated varieties are suited to this area, then doing something similar to the riverbend folks and crossing some with well adapted wild hazelnuts, then selecting the best offspring could eventually create productive varieties in this area with larger nuts. That's a long-term project, and one I could possibly eventually undertake but I'm not really in the position to now. I'm still hoping I'll find someone who's had success with a productive, larger not variety in a climate with milder winters.

Good information about effects of warmer winters on hazelnuts will probably end up being important to the northern growers too in the decades ahead as the climate changes, especially since the badgersett hybrids have been credited with "Resilience in the face of climate change". It's also possible that daylength is a factor in adaptation to different latitudes, it is important for some plants.

Here's some info I got from Tom Wahl of Red Fern Farm in Iowa, he gave me the OK to reprint here what he wrote in email correspondence to me.

"I am sorry, but I don’t have an answer to your question. You are the
farthest south of anyone I know of planting hybrid hazels. Clifford
England of England’s Orchard and Nursery (Kentucky) has hazels, but as
far as I know, they are all European, not hybrids (and European hazels
are adapted to areas ranging from Siberia to Turkey). Most of the
people I know who are planting hybrid hazels are in Wisconsin and
Minnesota. I tell people, “hazels are for people too far north for
chestnuts.” Even people in the southern third of MN and WI should be
planting chestnuts, not hazels, if they are for commercial purposes
rather than personal use.



One option you could consider is to try some of the “blight immune”
European hazels out of Oregon, New Jersey, Nebraska, and Ontario.
Those don’t usually stand up to the multiple strains of blight found
in Iowa, but when they are planted in places like Michigan, New York,
and New Jersey, they seem to do all right, at least so far. Their nut
size and quality may be better than the hybrids, too.



You said you may be involved with a “more substantial” planting of
hazels in the future. If, by this, you mean a commercial endeavor, I
would strongly advise against this, even if you know you are planting
hazels that would be very productive. I don’t know of anyone outside
of Oregon who has done anything but lose money on hazels. The Midwest
Hazel Cooperative says their break-even price for hazels is around $4
per pound. You can buy high-quality hazels on the world market for 60
cents per pound. You can’t compete with that on a commercial scale.
In contrast, I made over $9000 per acre on chestnuts this fall, and I
didn’t even have to harvest them—my customers did almost all the
harvesting for me, then they paid me for what they harvested."

"Something has occurred to me…hazels require cross pollination to set
nuts, as you know. Many seedling nut trees, like chestnuts, will
pollenize any other chestnut trees except for themselves and clones of
themselves. Hazels are a little bit more picky. It seems their
pollen partners need to be not too closely related. Full siblings,
and sometimes even half siblings can be too closely related to be
compatible. If you have just a few plants and if they came from the
same parentage, then cross pollination may be the problem. You could
easily test this by adding another plant or two that have different
parentage."

An update (February 26)

All the hazelnut catkins are actively growing, some 4 inches long already and some just beginning to break winter dormancy. Most plants have female flowers too. Does anyone know what the thresholds for freeze damage for hazelnut blooms are, because although we've had some pretty mild spells, it's still freezing at night pretty often, and the chances are that we'll still get some pretty cold weather after this, even though the next week's forecast isn't showing anything colder than mild freezes. Last year, it got close to zero degrees in early March, although the colder winter meant nothing much had broken dormancy. Such an early bloom time may be the problem with these northern-adapted strains in my climate. I hope I can find out the critical temperatures for blossom damage in hazelnuts, that information is easily available online for many species, such as all the common grown fruit trees, but google searches on hazelnuts have revealed conflicting information.

Spring freeze damage is more likely here in the Ozarks than in areas further north because the day-today and week-to-week temperature fluctuations are just as extreme as the upper midwest (and more extreme than areas influenced by the Great Lakes), but the increase in average temperatures over the course of the spring happens more gradually, making it more likely that early warm spells will trigger plants to break dormancy while a damaging freeze can still hit. In Minnesota, by contrast, the time between it being too cold for anything to break dormancy to being past the danger of freeze damage is typically much more brief, thus damaging spring freezes are less likely.

I was looking through the hazelnut bushes today and noticed one of them (one that came from Oikos) that did actually have some nuts on it this year. It's spotty, some branches have none and some have several clusters, but I'd say there are probably several dozen developing nuts scattered throughout the bush that's about 10 feet high and wide. The others still don't have any, it's possible there are a few hidden there that I didn't see, the plants are pretty big and lush, but I'm glad I finally have a few growing on one plant. It's interesting that it's the same bush that had some female flowers open last December. I assume these nuts are from flowers that opened later than that, I have trouble imagining that the flowers open in December would have remained viable the whole winter, it was a mild one here but still the lowest temperature was 10 degrees F and that kills all but the hardiest flowers. I haven't been able to find the sort of information about critical temperatures for hazelnut blooms as is readily out there for common fruits.

I'm still interested in hearing from others with hazelnut plantings south of 40 N latitude, whether they're successful or not.

I thought that I'd have something useful to add to this topic when I remembered that a significant portion of the commercial hazelnut crop is grown in Turkey.  The epicenter for hazelnut production in Turkey is Ordu (Lat 40.98, Long 37.88 ).  

I bought some little seedlings at Tractor supply earlier this in hopes that they would add to my hedgerow, but my locale is really, really hard on plants.  I'd even qualify the climate as adversarial.  The only things that do well here are invasive species elsewhere.

I have some good news to report. THe same bush from Oikos that I got a few dozen nuts from last year was loaded this year, I just harvested several hundred, and they seem mostly good quality. A couple of other plants also had some nits, but one of these had mostly empty shells ant the other had a decent percentage with rot issues. At least I have one hazelnut that seems pretty well adapted to southern Missouri, I'd still like to hear from others in similar climates.

Interesting thread! I'm in the same climate area as Richard  Kastanie, and planning hazelnuts for several reasons, only ones I have planted so far are the wild varieties from MO Conservation, cheap in bundles. After reading what Richard says, I think I'll use the wild ones as erosion control where I need it most, and see about putting better cultivars down my north slope, where it's always chillier, and where I'm putting fruit trees to keep them dormant as long as I can, to avoid the frozen blooms bit.

I loved the book "Growing Hybrid Hazelnuts" and took extensive notes, but I had already decided his hybrids are a landrace for his area and was wondering how to find some adapted more for this area to breed with.

Interesting! I'll definitely move my main hazelnuts on my design down to my chillier area!
I love permies, I learn SO MUCH here!!

I've recently finished transplanting a few dozen 1-year old hazelnuts that I started from seed from my one plant that's been productive so far. I grew them for a year in a garden bed, some got up to 2 feet tall, and just transplanted them to their permanent locations after they went dormant. I generally have better luck with transplanting in November here than any other time. I'm also in the middle of transplanting out several dozen chestnuts started the same way. Unfortunately, squirrels got to the hazelnuts I harvested this year so I won't be starting any this coming season, but I still have chestnut seed stratifying to br planted in the spring.

An update: Very low production this year. The plant that produced well last year had only a couple dozen nuts on it, a few other plants had a small crop but nothing major, even though the plants still look quite healthy.

Try reaching out to this guy to get some of these clones/offsprings.
https://globalfarmernetwork.org/2018/09/us-east-coast-hazelnuts-a-breeding-triumph/

I am trying to grow hazelnuts in the south, DFW Texas so...very south. I have purchased some OIKOs trees initially (Precocious , ECOS and Select One) and planted them 4 years ago, and another batch planted 3 years ago. I also got a wild American hazel from ebay, but can't recall where it was from in the country. I have also been growing a Barcelona during this time. Year 3 I started getting nuts from some Precocious plants, just a few. Year 4 I got some more from my oldest Precocious and some from the wild American a small handful of each. This year my other younger Precocious plants have flowered with more female flowers than ever before so hoping for a bigger handful of nuts. But based on flower numbers at best I could get about 50 nuts. My wild American flowered more this year with maybe 20-30 female flowers. Only now I am getting a few flowers from the 4 years old ECOS, and a couple on the Select One. Do not take this as one is better than the other as I have had to learn how to coddle these in the brutal Texas summers and had some issues with some plants for various reasons. About 2 years ago I started planting fungus resistant varieties  of Europeans including Jefferson, Felix, York,  with this year adding Yamhill. The Europeans are too young to know if they will work so won't mention them further here. The OIKOS ones I have planted in full sun or mostly full sun, and a couple in part shade. Even now I don't have a handle on all of this but a few observations that may be relevant to other southern growers. I am getting relatively few male catkins. Not enough to wind pollinate, so I literally have hand pollinated every flower. I am sure I would have got no nuts given how few catkins I had if I did not hand pollinate. Maybe in the future I will get the larger numbers of catkins for air pollination, but I am not sure. I am getting more female flowers than catkins. So for southern growers, perhaps this might be an issue? Also with the TX hot, typically dryer summer, I have to irrigate to keep them happy. They will survive without it, but tend to limp along. But even with good irrigation I get leaf burn in the high summer and lose some leaves (doesn't defoliate) then the leaves grow back at the end of the summer. If the male catkin issue continues then I will simply hand pollinate those tiny female flowers. If I start getting more catkins I will give the wind a shot. Things do seem to be moving in the right direction at least with female flowers with 2X more than last year so I am optimistic I should get the Americans to yield me a modest harvest of nuts in a year or two from a total of 9 plants. Note that the nuts so far are from Precocious and the wild American. Select one flowered this year for the first time probably cause it is small as I had to transplant. ECOS is as big as my Precoucious but it has only put on 3 female flowers this year a first. Whereas the Select One which is a third smaller in size put on about 8 flowers. The next year or two I should really have a feel for how productive the Americans will be. The fungus resistant Europeans should start some flowering in the next year or two based on current size. The one exception is Barcelona (fungi susceptible) finally put on a handful of female flowers on a 5 year old plant. That plant  has suffered from my learning curve and probably disease pressure but is still alive but I have not got nuts from it yet nor seen flowering till this year. Conclusions so far, some American varieties can produce at least some nuts in the punishing Texas summer. Now the question is can I get a lot. Too early to tell.

How are your hazels doing. I've got 50 American, about 30 Jefferson and a couple yamhills. Planted Jefferson seeds Spring of 2019, yahmill seedlings that spring and the Americans in February this year 2021.  Some of the Jeffersons are close to 7' tall now but I've not seen any flowers. In central Arkansas near Little Rock.  

Actually here in Texas it is looking promising. Got my new crop of hazelnuts ripening and should be ready to harvest in the next couple of weeks. For me hazels ripen in July rather than September as is typical in other regions. Here is what I currently have starting with the most mature to least, Oikos Precocious (an American European hybrid if I recall, have five), Oikos Ecos (one, American), Oikos Select One (two, American). I also have a wild American I got off of Ebay. These are nearing maturity in maybe a year or two. I also have a Barcelona that is near maturity. In the past 2-3 years I have added 3 Jeffersons, a York, a Felix and a Yamhill (obviously all Europeans). These latter ones are too young to bare yet. And this year I added some wild American's from an Ebay seller that harvested them in Tennessee. These are babies. The Oikos trees as I understand it are not varieties but mixed genetic makeup selected for big nuts and/or good production. So they have been selected to some extant but if you go buy them your tree may be different than mine. Indeed I am am seeing significant variability between the  the Precocious trees, with two that have decent size nuts and seem to be willing to produce. Another Precocious is making tiny, tiny nuts, but in abundance, the last, no nuts so far. Ecos has not produced nuts and has been slower to flower but otherwise is growing fine. The Select One trees I have are a lot smaller even though the same age, and they make smaller nuts you would expect with an American. The first wild Ebay American actually has been my star producer making nuts in greater abundance and nearly as large as European Hazels. My hope with all these trees combined I hoped to get an overall decent harvest when mature but I do not expect each tree to produce to their potential (that is probably asking too much given the Texas heat). I may well succeed with this modest goal. This year I may get a pound of nuts (in shell) collectively. This year my Barcelona is actually producing nuts as well for the first time (maybe 15-20 or so). Barcelona is of course a European and also susceptible to the fungus yet so far appears unaffected. The fact that Barcelona is making some nuts gives me hope that the Jeffersons and all the other Europeans I noted above may make some nuts too once more mature. Time will tell.

One observation I have about the European Hazels (from the Barcelona plant) is that the male catekins don't always survive the Texas summer heat, but do produce female flowers just fine in Jan.-Feb.  The Amercians and American crosses produce male catakins that do survive the summer heat just fine. So anybody else crazy enough like me to grow these in the south might want to consider having a mixture of American and European Hazels for pollination purposes. I pollinated Barcelona with American pollen. Also I have planted these trees in full sun to part shade not knowing if full sun would be too much for them. What I see so far is the Americans, and American crosses, in full Texas sun are mostly fine provided you are very mindful of keeping them watered adequately. The Europeans in the Texas sun survive but you can see a little bit of leaf loss and some leaf burn. Again keeping them well watered here is crucial. The Europeans in the part shade (a little more than half day sun, with sun reaching them in the morning and later afternoon) do not suffer the leaf loss. That said, even the ones in full sun retain most of their leaves. As their root system matures and deepens they may well keep all their leaves like the older Americans I have. We have had an unusually wet summer so far and also below normal temps that are in the high 80's to low 90's so far and the Europeans in full sun are looking great as of July 10. Last Summer was very dry from spring to summer and with normal heat and it killed the male Barcelona catekins and it lost some leaves (maybe 20%). I think this is more a water issue than a sun issue so I am making greater efforts to water these this summer but haven't needed to so far due to rain. The Europeans in part shade last summer were largely fine with very little leaf loss. But it appears if there is some leaf loss with Europeans from heat and dry weather the male catekins won't make it. This is not the case with the Americans and crosses.

Some other general notes: we average maybe 800 hours chill in DFW area and this seems to be enough for viable female flowering. Also this past winter we had that unusual freeze with temps down around -1 F for a a day right in the middle of the female flowering and I am still getting nuts now. If that freeze did not happen I may well have many more nuts now. But the point being that even with a very hard freeze in the middle of flowering, subsequent flowers survived and produced nuts. They were half way into flowering when the freeze hit. The Ecos American hazel has taken 6 years to even start flowering even though it is the same age as Precocious. Also one of five Precocious has flowered  plenty but no nuts so far. Select One hazels are only 3 feet high after 6 years but they are producing nuts. Precocious and Ecos are bush in form and are about 8 feet tall by comparison at the same age. My wild American that is 6 years old is about 8 feet in bush form but is making nuts the most of all so far and they are almost as big as Barcelona which is quite a surprise.

The oldest pure Europeans I have are one Jefferson (4 years, bush, 5 ft tall) and one Felix (4 years, bush, 4 feet), one York (4 year, bush, 3 feet, but I had to move this one and it was in a bad location and is catching up), none of these have produced catekins or female flowers yet. The other Jeffersons and Yamahill are only two years old and too young. But if Barcelona can work, then there is good potential for the other Europeans. It will be a few years though to be sure on the Europeans. All combined the Americans and A/E cross I believe will give me a large enough crop to be worth the while. If the Europeans all work in the future then I will have even more. But as I said I do not expect these to be as productive as trees grown in Oregon. I am not a commercial grower so that is fine for my individual needs. As noted I planted a number of wild Americans sourced from Tennessee this spring.  So far so good for me.

Sorry for the long post but given the ages, microclimates where planted and whatnot I wanted to be detailed in what I have observed so far.

Made an error in my post. The ages at the end are the correct ones. Can't seem to edit my post to correct.

I live about 100 miles southwest of Dallas and would love to try planting some hazelnuts if there seems any chance of success. Might you be willing to give an update on how your hazelnuts did over the last year? Thank you very much.

Here is my update for Dallas area hazelnut growing. First about the weather. Last summer was brutally hot reaching 110. Very hot and big time drought where I am at. I have various types mentioned above. Last summer I got some die back on some of my Select One hazels due to heat. These were newly planted so not as established. On the established trees (see above post) survived.  Note that Select One and Precocious are not a variety per se, so one plant may not be the same as another although related to some degree.

Last summer one of my 4 precocious has huge number of nuts but were micro size, really tiny. So small not even worth shelling. Pulled that plant and it was its first year nutting. Got just a couple of nuts from two other Precocious that have decent sized nuts. Last Precocious gave me nothing despite being 9 ft tall. Micro nut Precocious is gone now I have three. Barcelona gave me 6 nuts on a very mature tree. Most of the catakins don't survive till pollen time. i got a few nuts from my two Select One's. That was last year in brutal heat (even for Texas) and severe drought so not too surprising.

I am just starting the harvest for nuts this year, good rain but it got hot extra early hear and we are hitting 105F range for several days already and are predicting much more (not this for later). One Precocious gave me 10 nuts 100% blanks for some reason. The other Precocious with decent size nuts flowered much later but looks like a couple dozen nuts, oddly this year of varying size compared to before but since not ready for harvest don't know if they will be blanks too (neither were total blanks in the past fyi). My third Precocious (9 feet tall), flowered well for the first time, gave me one small nut and it was a blank. May pull the 9ft Precocious, or maybe give it one more year. My full sun Select One is doing best this year with maybe three dozen nuts (note Select One are Americana so small nuts averaging .5g kernal weight, very few blanks but not all harvest yet. So far good nut fill. They vary a bit in size and range from .25g to .65g kernal. Full sun Select One kept all its catkins and it had had a lot. Part sun Select One gave me 3 nuts, few catkins but it is in a drier location. Separated  that plant and put one in full sun with better water to see if it will do better while keeping the original in same location. My wild Corylus Americana is giving me maybe two dozen nuts, but these are really thick shelled with tin kernals in the .25g range and kept all it catkins. I keep this one as a pollen source, not for the nuts. Ecos trees at 7 feet tall produced only 5 flowers total, no catkins, no nuts. They should be close to mature, not sure, but will be keeping if I can get catkins for a pollen source even it it doesn't nut. My Yamhill produced a few catkins for the first time and a couple of flowers, but is not mature yet so no judgement on that yet. My Jeffersons are about 4 ft except one at 6 feet. No catkins or flowers yet. My Felix is same age as the big Jefferson but is in that dry location and is only 4 ft, split the plant and put one full sun with better water and seems a bit happier, no flower or catkins yet. My York is certainly old enough but has struggled to grow in 5 years and is still 2.5 ft tall, moved it to partial shad, still struggling. Added a whole bunch of new ones last year and this year including 3 Raritans, 2 Sommersets, a Hunterdon, 3 Dorris, 2 Beasts, 2 Grand Traverse, 2 Polly O, 1 Theta another wild Corylus Americana (pollen source ultimately), 1 Winkler.

Some observations on growth, some handle the heat better than others and am trying to find the ones that grow best. Some are getting scorched leaves in the heat, catkin issues (heat and wind). I don't know if this is supposed to happen but I get leaves in the spring, then in July the plants start growing again. The ones with sun scorch may lose half the spring leaves, but the July growth keeps them from being partially defoliated. I think where this is going for me I suspect the scorched plants may have issues nutting, just a theory as they are not mature, I will see it through to find out. OK the ones getting scorched leaves: bad York.Ecos; Jefferson seedling (so not pure Jefferson); Moderate: Jefferson (pure from layered plant), Felix; some scorch: Barcilona, two Precocious in full sun, Raritan. The "some" scorch is not enough that I am worried about it and sometimes happens if I am not on top of watering. The ones with little or no sun scorched leaves are Theta, Dorris, Polly O, Yamhill, both unrelated wild Corylus Americana, Beast, Grand Traverse, Select Ones, and the other Precocious in 2/3rds day sun. Just planted Sommerset and Hunterdon this spring so can't say on those but the Sommerset seems to be getting a bit of scorch, Hunterdon bit less but these are establishing this summer so not the final verdict. Also Raritans are planted last year so pretty young and may stop once established more.

Catkin damage issues due to heat and wind and how many catkins survived and made pollen at the flowering period: very few on Barcelona, one Precocious (9ft) full sun very few (other 2 Precocious catkins are fine and plentiful), very few on Ecos, part sun  Select One in dry spot afew from last year but better in better weather. Now this is not so much an issue as long as the other plants make catkins as I have been hand pollinating so far. Robust catkins: 2 of three Precocious, mature wild Corylus Americana (other unrelated one is too young), Select One in full sun with moister soil, I think Yamhill will be good with Catkins. I should at least be getting catkins on my 6ft Jefferson but nothing is developing now (not mature? or not doing well in heat so not making them? too early to say still). Everything else is too young yet.

My suspicion is that ultimately the varieties that don't get scorched by the sun are going to work best but don't know yet. Corylus Americana's handle the sun and hang onto catkins well. So worth have a variety of these, be it Select One or wild (pay attention to where in the U.S you get your wilds, Michagan? No, Tennessee or more south, yes, and paradoxically Winkler) just to be sure you get pollen. While most are too young to produce, if healthiest looking non scorched growth turns out to be an indicator of producing nuts (no guarantee) then Dorris, Polly O, Grand Traverse, Beast, Select One, wild Corylus Americana (from southern region) Select One, some Precocious, Yamhill, Winkler, and preliminarily Hunterdon and Raritan. One Sommerset is doing great in half day sun, the full sun one is get some scorch but to early to say. This is all one giant experiment and not all may work (worried about Jefferson, Felix, Ecos, York and Barcilona), if so I will pull the ones that don't then back fill with more of the ones that do.

Anyway need to run, I know this is quite a confusing data dump but since full sun vs. half sun, how dry etc affect these issues I needed to detail it all which makes this post a mess. Anyway hope you can interpret it. Feel free to ask questions and will clarify anything. Next year I will do another data dump. Might get Yamhill, Dorris and The Beast to produce next year if I am lucky but still pretty young.

We are at 36 latitude in middle Northern Tennessee and we just discovered wild hazelnuts in our side woods

I planted 25 hazelnut trees 4 years ago. I haven't even looked at them in 2 years. my chestnuts that are 9 years old are just starting to produce a few nuts. nut trees take time.