Hazelnut?

[Catscratch]

Tell me about hazelnut. I'm thinking about planting a row of them along the edge of the forest that boarders my orchard.
Native? Improved variety? Easy to grow or difficult? Do the need sprayed? What about cages, will deer hammer them? Etc...

 

[Tree Spud]

In my experience, they needed to be caged. Deer liked to browse them and this was before I started caging trees. If you can protect them, they should put up multiple stems. Squirrels were big competitors for the nuts.

 

[Native Hunter]

Hey Cat,
Oregon State University is the leader in improved varieties of hazelnuts. They develop European Cultivars that are immune to the Eastern Filbert Blight, and some of these cultivars are available to the public thought various nurseries. They will usually state in the description that it is an OSU variety and then give you a little more info on which cultivars to put together for good pollination. They reason they use Euro varieties is because that is what's grown and sold commercially due to the fact that they have larger nuts than our American varieties. Anything from OSU should be just fine.

There is also another Euro variety named Tonda Di Giffoni which is an Italian cultivar that is blight immune and produces great nuts. I have this one and several of the OSU varieties. Once you buy them, you can reproduce your own extra ones through layering. One thing to keep in mind about the Euros - they do have some shade tolerance, but they are not nearly as tolerant as our American bushes.

Along with growing the Euros, I have lots of native hazelnuts. The secret here is to dig up bushes from several different locations and set them close to each other. This insures that pollination will be good. Lot's of people don't understand why they fail to get good nut production when the problem is that all of their bushes are coming off of the same root system. At my farm I have bushes from six or seven different locations, and they are ususally loaded with nuts. Last year the ones near one of my roads that I drive laid down in the road due to so many nuts. I took a rope and pulled them back so I could drive by.

I can't establish Euros at the farm without caging, but my natives are not browsed as much. Not sure what the difference is, but it is something I have noticed.

Let me know if you have any more questions.

 

[Troubles Trees]

I definitely agree with Native on mixing different cultivars not just for diversity of flavors but for better pollination. I have only planted Hazels from Z's Nutty Ridge because the location is across the valley from my house so I know they do well in my climate (zone 4B'ish) and being a neighbor he gives me a discount :) He has quite a few different flavors and I plant a few new ones every year, but like Blue Hill, he sells out very fast.

I have not seen any browsing on mine but I don't have high deer density and they are planted close to my house. I also haven't seen any signs of blight yet and they have been in the ground for 4 years. I did have catkins this year but haven't looked yet to see if they are forming nuts. I gave them a weedmat and mulch and they grow better than most things I have planted.

If you like Hazelnuts you will not be disappointed planting these even if you just want to feed wildlife, but the nuts are delicious!!

 

[rocksnstumps]

Natives and hybrid hazels will get browsed but they are fairly tough and once I put a few cages up they filled the cage with multiple stems from the original one that got chomped. Agree on trying different varieties. Just the native ones from your local or state conservation groups that typically sell them are pretty cheap to pick up in bunches of 25 to 50 or so. The hybrid ones are probably 5X the cost but the focus on those is bigger and more productive nut production. The native ones are pretty tasty just like the Euro ones but with much smaller nuts.

Don't need to spray and pretty easy to establish.

 

[SD51555]

I've got native hazelnut and beaked hazel on my property. I think it's about the best shrub in the woods, even ahead of dogwood. The deer browse it enough to get something out of it, but they don't kill it or set it back like they do dogwood. I've never seen a nut that didn't have a worm hole in it. All of the nuts are consumed quickly by the critter-verse.

Mine also don't get much taller than 6-8' and don't seem to mind partial shade.

 

[H20fwler]

Hazelnuts are my favorite shrub. For me here they are almost bulletproof.
Seven or eight years ago I planted 20-25 American hazelnuts along the edge of my woods. Today they have turned into hundreds that are loaded with nuts every fall. And here anyway they are slow droppers, they start dropping in October and are still dropping nuts in December. Absolutely everything eats them, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a nut on the ground. The ones along the woods don’t get browsed at all, the ones I have in shrub strips in pasture do some.
Jap Beatles really go after them but they seem to grow out of it. Mine are around 6’-7’ when mature and kind of spindly and bushy but seem to be thriving well.

 

[Barndog56]

I've got 4 natives up by the house, so they don't get browsed. The nuts are good but smaller than what you'd buy from the store.

Beetles love mine, both the Rose Chafer and Japanese. No problems with disease so far.

 

[Hoytvectrix]

I planted 50 American hazelnuts from MDC this spring in tree tubes due to the high deer numbers. We have wild hazelnuts growing in fence rows and along forest edges. I also bought a bunch of 'Jefferson' hazelnut seed from Burnt Ridge. I have a few dozen seedlings that were started with my chestnuts indoors this past winter. The seedlings are fairly vigorous, with the largest being about 3 feet right now and still growing.

It is probably my new favorite tree and I am going to plant a full orchard once I can get my hands on more varieties.

 

[cavey]

only draw back IMO is they are soooooooooooooooooooooo sloooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww to grow/establish, after about 10 years they are pretty cool, Im glad I planted them but it has taken time... lots of time. I have transplanted larger clumps which as cut down on the time it takes to establish them.

 

[cavey]

ps.... once established they do make a nice thick brush-shrub line and mine are never browsed to any degree that I even notice...

 

[Catscratch]

Hmmm, you guys have me kind of excited about these things (except for the sloooooooow part, I don't need slow at this point in life). Suppose I should do some research to see if they grow here.

Thanks for the replies!

 

[Hoytvectrix]

Hmmm, you guys have me kind of excited about these things (except for the sloooooooow part, I don't need slow at this point in life). Suppose I should do some research to see if they grow here.

Thanks for the replies!

If you buy commercial trees, even shorter ones, they can produce a few nuts in the first year. I have several trees that are probably 3 year old's that are all producing some nuts this year.

I yield to everyone else with the native hazelnuts for how long they take to produce. For what it's worth, I tried several bare root seedlings in tubes and others in cages. It seems like the ones in cages are doing a bit better. Again, small sample size though.

 

[Wind Gypsy]

Definitely going to have to add some to the hybrid oaks, spruce, and ROD plantings on the part of the hay field i'm turning into cover before the part of the hayfield that became food plots.

@GMan5465 has a shit ton of it growing that i believe used to be mowed down by livestock before he purchased his place. I think it's going to turn out really cool for him.

 

[Foggy47]

I've got hundreds (thousands?) of natural hazel bushes throughout my property. Seems everything leaves the nuts alone until they dont....then they are all consumed quite quickly. Usually Mid Sept to early October IIRC.

 

[3I0]

I have tons of beaked hazel at my place that shows up everywhere I don't mow, but it doesn't seem high on the list for browse species here (low deer density though overall). It seems like they will browse it here or there as they walk by but you don't see every stem get chewed at the ends like red osier dogwood. I like it more for the side cover it provides, and being a shrub more than a tree it doesn't shade out other stuff I plant.

 

[GMan5465]

Definitely going to have to add some to the hybrid oaks, spruce, and ROD plantings on the part of the hay field i'm turning into cover before the part of the hayfield that became food plots.

@GMan5465 has a shit ton of it growing that i believe used to be mowed down by livestock before he purchased his place. I think it's going to turn out really cool for him.

Yep, lots of them! Deer are all over them in the winter. Agree with Foggy, seems like the nuts just disappear. I’m starting to play with mowing them at different times to get them back down to the deers level.

 

[Foggy47]

Seems when those nuts are "ripe" everything eats them. Bears, deer, turkeys, squirrels.

 

[cavey]

I always say variety is the spice of life and variety in differing food sources that are 24/7/365 are central to my goals. A mix of stuff that always has at least something to offer throughout the entire year. I look at hazel nuts shrubs as part of balanced portfolio that is a good screen and provides a good food source in nuts, around here its not browsed much,... maybe further north were its more common, IDK just isnt here. These are native hazel nuts not hybrids I cant speak for those and have taken a decade to establish any significant size and are now starting to spread - somethings are just long term investments that add habitat balance in time... they are faster than most oaks though !

I am glad I put them in, but they were slow enough that I kind of forgot about them other than just knowing they are there... as mentioned the nuts are there then magically they are gone - consumed when the time is right and fast. There is value in them Im not really ripping on them apart from the lack of speed, their like a turtle in a hare race -

 

[b116757]

I got a few hazelnuts added to a larger fruit tree order to try and it pushed me over on price to get free shipping so they were more of an afterthought. I tubed the three I received and went ahead and planted them in a much larger planting of trees. I’ve had somewhat poor luck with those three but I suspect that’s do to their shrub growth habit the tubes are far from ideal.