Darby Johnson

Dennis Bangham wrote:I just bought some of Rutgers Hazel Nut trees.  They indicate they have protection against EFB.  I also have a few of the Washington State that are protected against the western EFB.  Will see how it turns out.

I don't know what the EFB pressure is like in AL but if is similar to the rest of east coast you should stick with Rutgers. OSU resistant hazels are not resistant in the east coast due to great EFB disease pressure. Whether that includes Alabama I can't say. Hard to say if you will get a lot of production in 7a. You might but don't be surprised is you don't get the same amount as they would further north in New Jersey. Sort of depends on what your specific weather is like, how cold it gets, late frosts. The female flowers are good down to low temps but the male catekins when they start producing pollen in Jan-March are more sensitive to very cold snaps. I am trying these in Texas 8a and I have my own unique issues.

Melissa Taibi wrote:Are hazelnuts okay with some shade? I have several that are due to be planted in my native food forest garden but the way I have it planned out so far, most, if not all, of the hazelnuts will be fairly shaded (at least they will when the bigger things get to mature size). My understanding is that hazelnuts are understory plants and so I assumed shade was okay... but looking at some of these comments, it seems they may be much slower to grow and produce in the shade. Should I reevaluate my food forest layout? For reference, I'm in the northern hemisphere and there is existing woods/thicket to the south of my planting area so planting on the south side of the plot doesn't necessarily mean more sun. Think the hazelnuts will be okay with the kind of shade they'll get here? I did try to keep everything out from under the canopies of their neighbors considering average mature sizes.

You will want full sun ideally, can get away with 3/4 day sun.
You are in the location that should work for the Rutgers hazels Somersett, Hunterdon and Raritan. You have lots of fungus there and these are resistant to the strong disease pressure you have there. The OSO fungus resistant varieties are not resistant on the east coast. The Rutgers are large nuts. You can plant Corylus americana but their nuts are very tiny.

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.

OK getting more experience with Yellowhorns as each year goes by. I have several trees of different ages. I mentioned earlier die back problems, so one tree planted 6 years ago had bad die back, but did not kill it, limped along for two years, now seems to be growing at a normal pace. It is flowering and seems so far I might get one fruit from it. But due to the die back this bush is only 1.5 feet tall.  I have my healthy 5 year old tree which is finished flowering and putting on growth and will probably reach 5-6 feet this year. This year it appears I will be getting maybe 5 fruit (each contains several nuts if you are unfamiliar) from this one tree. I did have a branch die back on my healthy tree this year (so guess it is not 100% healthy now), but it was one branch on a multi-branched shrub. Cut that off and the rest is growing normally and robustly. As noted earlier I have pollen from other trees frozen or from other trees flowering. It is unclear if these are self fertile at all, but I have read maybe partial. That could be, but wasn't taking chances so got pollen from other unrelated trees (which I got from different sources so hopefully have compatible genetics for pollination, which appears to be so). Another detail about this tree if you are not familiar is it has male and female flowers on  stalks it puts out. Male flowers open first at the base of the stalk, then as flowering moves up the stalk you will get some female flowers along with the male, with females more towards the end of the stalk. Some of the flower stalks are all male however. On my 5 year old tree I think I had 4-5 all male flower stalks, and 5 which had female and male flowers. I only have three trees flowering this year and seems to be happening similarly so maybe this is how the tree flowers.  If you look in the flower and see a little mound at the bottom that is the ovary topped with the pistil, male flowers will not have this. So obviously you want to be pollinating those with that are female. Male flowers seem to have pollen immediately after opening and have yellow interiors. Not certain but it looks like the pollen is reduced or gone as the male flower turns red in its interior. So based on my biggest tree I started by getting one fruit on years three, year 4 really bad drought and heat so no fruit, now year 5 with maybe 5 fruit. I seem to be getting one fruit per stalk (that has female flowers) with the other developing little fruits aborting on the same stalk. This might be due to the trees size, maybe when it is a lot bigger there will be more than one fruit per stalk. Just a guess though on that. The tree grows on the slow side but as it gets bigger the new growth gets proportionately bigger and thus puts on more size a bit faster. It is a 5 year crawl to get to about 5 feet tall, but I suspect it will be only 2-3 years to get a ten foot tree so you have to have some patience. All in all things seem to be working for the most part now with less die back and I have 9 trees planted of varying ages of 1-6 years. I had bought seeds from 3 different sources in the hope for genetic diversity which I seem to have. Also recommend these for your front yard as a beautiful spring flowering tree, it puts on quite a show as well. See you next years with the next update lol.

Update on my Texas Yellowhorn experience. I mentioned above die back issues, or trees outright dying. Two possibilities since I am having more success now. One is planting in locations with soils that get too wet. The trees that died were in flat parts of my yard. We get huge gushing rain falls when it happens so that area does not drain as well. Note this is not sitting in pooled water, just a flat area. The other possibility is I got some disease trees, or the locations planted had some disease in the roots. I still have one of my diseased trees growing but it is stunted and prone to die back periodically. Since this remaining tree has better drainage, I think the issue is some sort of disease. I don't know what, but my remaining affected tree is 5 years old, only one foot tall and not healthy.

On the assumption I got some diseased trees and/or planted in bad spots, I got some seeds from multiple different sources (not these things are not self pollinating, so you need different genetic stock to cross pollinate, hence the seeds from different sources). I have also noted if you start these indoors as I was doing you need to be very careful on transplantation. If I grew these in shallow pots they did not do well when planted out. When I grew them in tall tubes and being very careful with planting out it worked much better. There is a tap root with these, I am guessing the small pots has the tap root swirling around the bottom of the pot and that is not good. I have also direct seeded out doors both in the fall and in the spring, and both worked fine. Ideally direct seeding is best but starting indoors is possible as noted. Also I planted these on slopped locations in my yard to insure good drainage. All is going great now. These new trees so far have no die back, no diseases and are growing healthy. My oldest is about 4 years old, maybe 3-4 feet tall, has flowered and produced nuts in year three. In year four, this year we had a very dry hot spring with an even hotter dry summer reaching as high as 110 at times, with about 60 days of about 100. Bone dry all summer. Of course I regularly watered as I did not wish to test how drought tolerant these really are but even with watering they were relatively dry. This was enough to keep me from getting nuts this summer but the tree otherwise handled the heat without issue and grew nicely. Also planted out or seeded new plants, and with watering they also survived the summer. So now got 5 growing, one big, the rest one year old. As sources noted it is slow growing and I expect by year 5 it will be about 5 feet tall. So they grow in the brutal Texas heat in 8a, are at least somewhat drought tolerant and would not be surprised if they are very drought tolerant upon reaching larger sizes of 5 feet or more. When they reach this maturity I will test the drought tolerance with less watering and will report back. So I have cracked the code it seems and should be getting a bunch of nice trees with lots of nuts in a few years.

I have been trying to establish Yellowhorn here in the DFW area of Texas for the past 4 - 5 years. Couple general things. I have not had any major issues germinating them in short order. I do a good size nick on the seed coat, soak  in water for 24 hours and plant. Usually in 1-2 weeks they sprout. Got seed from several different sources and the worst germination was maybe 40%. You do not need to chill these first in my experience. Have not tried growing without nicking the seed coat. They grow slow. Once they spout into a 6 inch starter tree they are done for the year and it will be next summer before more growth. By about 3 years the tree may be 1-2 feet depending on growing conditions, and whether it is a single stem tree or shrub, seems you can train either way. 100 degree hot dry summer her are common. The heat does not seem to be an issue. Some I have watered regularly, others I planted on slopes that get less attention but got varying amounts of rain with gaps of a few weeks with no rain. Either seems fine.

The problem I am having is sudden death, or sudden die back. Supposedly these are relatively pest free. So I keep trying, they keep dying back or dying and not coming back. This summer one had the top half die back but the lower part of the tree did not. I can't see anything obvious  as to the cause, not that I am an expert that can tell though. Didn't dig up and look at roots cause I hoped it would come back the next year. Anyway, I had started a new plant from seed inside under grow lights and that one suddenly lost all its leaves and stems even though it was in a more controlled growth condition. I have one tree on a slope that is healthy, is now 3 years old and about 2 feet high. I have others that have resprouted from roots from a previous season die back to the ground, but these too experience total or partial die back. So either there is a bug pest here, or some sort of disease but except for one tree (so far), I have had die back issues. I thought it was too damp in the spring one season. So did a slope and didn't water  much (one the potted one indoors), lots of die back. They do not seem to mind the very hot Texas summers, I do not see signs of water stress during high heat and dry conditions. They do not die during the sometimes persistent, heavy spring rains. So doesn't seem to be a water or heat issue. Some pest. And when it dies back, it is quick. Great looking one day then yellowing and dropped all leaves by 2 weeks.

So for my one healthy 3 year old plant, it flowered this summer, I had frozen pollen from another plant, pollinated, it produced a peach sized fruit and I got 10 nuts. Other plants that got to this size and a bit larger flowered but did not fruit. I tried eating some of the nuts. I must say I am not seeing descriptions posted online about their taste that resemble what I get. I roast these cause I don't know if you can eat them raw. You can get slightly different tastes based on roasting time. Doesn't taste like macadamia's. Macadamia's have that kind of subtle sweet taste. That is not it. Texture is not like macadamia's either. With proper roasting time it has a taste midway between maybe a cashew and hazelnut. The texture of the nut after roasting is softer than these other nuts though. There can be a hint of bitterness in the after taste. Also if you over roast them you can get a bit of a bitter-burnt taste so you want to lightly roast and not brown them. I had tried some nuts I bought from someone else's tree of unknown ripeness. I noted more bitter after taste with these. Either not ripe or variation from my tree. In this instance I washed the seed kernel in water before roasting and that took a lot of the bitterness away. So there might be some saponins on the surface of the kernel that can be washed off. So my verdict on Yellowhorn nut taste: with ripe nuts, roasted very lightly it tastes pretty much like a decent nut. But more in the vein of hazels or cashews. It lacks the  tannin type taste I get from Walnuts and pecans. It lacks the sweetness of a macadamia. It is a softer texture though sort of like sunflower.

As far as how productive they are as trees I can't seem to get to that point as I keep getting this die back. This happened with seeds I germinated myself, or trees I have got from nurseries that were about 2 years old when I planted. I can't see insects of any kind on leaf or stem, don't see some obvious virus or fungus on the trees. And again, got seeds or trees from different sources, planted indifferent locations far apart. My one 3 year old that just fruited looks perfectly healthy, is on  a slope, we got regular rain over the summer every few weeks and I only water it if it has been like 3 weeks or so of high heat and no rain. This one looks fine. The others in the back which are root sprouts from another 3 year old that died to the ground, themselves are getting some die back.

So if I can get these things to grow into larger trees they seem like a good nut tree for Texas. They seem to do well in the Texas heat, survive freezing winter, do well in dry conditions, 3 months of 95-100 degrees seems no big problem. Note in my part of Texas the soil is a bit better than the rest of the state, I have neutral pH soil, no clay gumbo like other areas, so that shouldn't be an issue. Maybe a bug is munching roots, or some fungus maybe,or maybe something is happening above ground that is not obvious. If anyone has ideas let me know. If you can get the tree to grow, and get nuts, it does seem worth it. Just don't expect macadamia's, they aren't.

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

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.

Not sure if this is helpful but I am in TX trying to grow Almonds zone 8a. You mentioned Indiana gets warm and followed by a freeze. This happens in TX a lot. If your almond flowers start peaking out, with the initial pink tip, any sustained (by this I mean just hours) of below 30 degree weather and it will kill the flowers. So buy a late blooming almond right? I have All-in One, Alenia and Non-Pareil. The Alenia (also called Prima) supposedly blooms very late but in real life it blooms about a week later than the other two. Since the other two bloom mid-February we are talking late Feb with Alenia. Honestly that does not make much difference with late frosts we have here in TX. So I figured once every couple years we wouldn't have a late frost and I would get almonds and be happy with that. Well no late frost this year and my self fertile All-in Ones should be loaded with developing nuts but they are not.  I am suspicious that they are basically not self fertile despite the advertising. Non pareil did not flower, Alenia only had a few flowers as it is not mature like the All-in-ones (I am also suspicious because Almond farmers in CA want a self fertile variety to ease restraints on bee pollination, well why didn't they plant a bunch of All-in one's?). So if you get a "self-fertile" All-in one, it may not be, which can be another reason for not getting nuts. Next year my Alenia's should be in full bloom and I can report back on the pollination issue with All-in-one's. This was going to be the year, a few mature self fertile trees, weather cooperated nicely, all looked good and just about nothing.