. Once a tree starts producing, you can expect a new hazelnut harvest every year, up to 50 years. Native hybrid hazelnuts provide a crop that is constantly in short supply, are well known to consumers and are almost grown on their own. By Dawn and Jeff Zarnowski Tasty and healthy hazelnuts are used in many food products desired by consumers and are chronically scarce.
Almost all of the hazelnuts consumed in North America come from Oregon or Turkey. However, hazel trees are native to the eastern half of North America, from Louisiana to Georgia in the south, to Manitoba and Quebec in the north. Native hazelnuts (Corylus americana) are resilient, disease-resistant and highly tolerant to a wide range of growing conditions, and yet there is a shortage of nuts. Indigenous nuts are usually small and are not as tasty as European hazelnuts (Corylus avellana), which have been selected for their quality for hundreds and thousands of years.
This is where the hybridization of the two species of hazelnuts over the past century has produced new varieties that have the best qualities of both. Hazelnut organizations have been formed to promote the cultivation of this native crop with better qualities. Another wonderful thing about hazelnuts is that you don't have to wait long before the tree produces nuts so you can eat them. Hazelnut trees start to bear fruit in just 4 years and produce large yields in years six or seven.
In addition, you can choose to grow it as a shrub or as a single-stemmed tree. A multi-stemmed bush will form if you do not cut or cut the shoots that grow near the base of the tree. In the form of a shrub, it will grow 8 to 12 feet tall. In the shape of a shrub, the hazelnut allows you to easily pick walnuts by hand and plant them without worries in the environment to control erosion or as a hedge.
If you choose to grow it as a single-stemmed tree, it will grow 14 to 16 feet tall and about the same width. Once the tree is large enough to shade the base, the shoots will not grow. The native hazel tree is adaptable and easy to grow; however, it took many generations of hybridization to generate native trees with large, tasty nuts. Becoming a hazelnut is quite a long process.
Hazelnut flower clusters are produced more than a year before the nut is ready to harvest. How many years does it take for plants to start producing nuts? According to research from Minnesota, hazelnuts start producing in 3 to 4 years and reach full production after 7 to 8 years. There are several different species in the genus Corylus, many of which produce the edible nuts we know as hazelnuts or filbertas. Usually, in hazelnut orchards, three pollinating varieties (those that pollinate at the beginning, middle and end of the season) are placed throughout the orchard, not in solid rows.
Hazelnuts thrive in well-drained, clay soil, but they grow in many types of soil as long as the soil is well-drained. In Utah, hazelnuts that are grown for nut production are generally kept as shrubs, with an oval or round shape that grows to 15 feet tall and wide. Most plant flowers have an ovary containing ovules with eggs prepared for fertilization, but hazelnut flowers have several pairs of long styles with stigmatic surfaces receptive to receiving pollen and a small portion of tissue at their base called an ovarian meristem. While American hazelnuts can self-pollinate, European hazelnuts are self-incompatible, meaning that even though a single plant has male and female flowers, they cannot self-pollinate.
Although hazelnuts are monoecious (they have male and female flowers on the same tree), they are incompatible with each other, meaning that a tree cannot produce nuts with its own pollen. The European seaweed, also called common hazelnut, European hazelnut or cunet, is a beautiful deciduous shrub that is often found in nature and grows on forest edges, on wooded slopes and along the banks of streams. All hazelnut species benefit from being planted in frost-protected areas to increase the likelihood of consistent nut production. The peak of pollination for hazelnuts occurs from January to February, depending on weather conditions.
Hazelnuts should not be planted on grass where grass and woody plants have different watering requirements and compete for nutrients. Although the European hazelnut, with its large nuts, is very common commercially, this species blooms earlier than others and its flowers are more likely to be damaged or destroyed by an unusually cold climate. I have found several wild species that grow along the highway where I live (west of Boone, North Carolina) and I have planted 17 hazelnuts from the Arbor Hazelnut Initiative. .
