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A real gardener will definitely try to grow hazelnuts from nuts. Its fruit is considered the most nutritious. And in terms of the presence of useful properties, hazelnuts are second only to walnuts. By observing the rules of agricultural technology for growing hazelnuts, and following the advice of experienced gardeners, you can grow the desired fruit in your area.
Is it possible to grow hazelnuts from nuts
On an industrial scale, hazelnuts are not grown in Our Country. Although there is nothing difficult to grow it in the middle lane and the southern regions of the country. If a decision is made to grow hazelnuts from a nut in the country, then you need to know some planting rules and stick to them.
The peculiarity of such a planting is that the harvest of hazelnut fruits grown from seeds can be harvested not for 3-5 years, as in trees grown from seedlings, but for 6 years or later. Varietal features may also not appear in this case. And this must be taken into account. Therefore, the seed method is more often used by breeders to develop new hazel qualities.
Features of the germination of hazelnuts
To grow hazel from a nut at home, you need to select large, well-ripened fruits. After seedlings grow from them, further reproduction should be carried out vegetatively.
Hazelnut has male and female flowers. But he cannot pollinate himself because they bloom at different times. In order for pollination to occur and ovaries to appear, 2-3 varieties of hazelnuts should be grown on the site, the flowering of which coincides for pollination of each other.
How to plant a hazelnut from a walnut
There are several ways in which hazelnuts can be grown. The nuts method is the easiest. It is carried out in spring or autumn. Autumn planting of walnut hazelnuts should be done about a month before frost and snow fall. Plant seeds at the rate of 50 nuts per 1 sq. m, deepened into the soil by 7-8 cm.
If for some reason it was not possible to plant hazelnut seeds in open ground in the fall, then before spring planting, the nuts should be stratified to improve germination.
To grow a hazel, you can plant seeds both on seedlings and in open ground. If, after stratification, seedlings were rare or did not exist at all, you need to wait for next spring. Perhaps the nuts have not undergone the necessary stratification, and this will happen in winter.
Selection of planting material
The selection of nuts should be in September-October. Fruits for planting should be well ripened, whole, without any damage by pests. It is recommended to inspect each nut. They should not smell like mold.
It is hardly possible to find the necessary planting material on the market. It is better to buy it in horticultural farms or nurseries. You can borrow from the garden of a familiar gardener who grew a hazel on his own.
In the fall, just before planting the seeds in the ground, it is advisable to treat the fruits with kerosene against rodents.
Hazelnut stratification
Before spring sowing, the seeds must be stratified within 3-4 months. The procedure is as follows:
- Nuts are soaked in water for 5 days.
- A layer of wet sand and nuts is alternately poured into a container (wooden box or plastic bucket), thus mixing the nuts with sand.
- The container is taken out into a room in which the temperature is within +2 … +50C.
- Periodically check the condition of the nuts, mix them with sand once every 1-10 days.
The ratio of sand and nuts should be 3:1. The container must have holes for oxygen to enter.
Soil Preparation
Hazelnuts are unpretentious to the state of the soil. It can grow in different types of soil. The main thing is that these soils should not be too clayey, swampy, saline and dry sandy. If groundwater passes above 1,2 m underground, then there is a possibility of rotting of the hazelnut root system.
Growing hazelnuts is equally easy both on the plain and on the slopes. It is specially planted to stop soil corrosion. If the soil is infertile, then its composition can be corrected by adding the missing elements to it in advance: slaked lime or wood ash is added to too acidic soils, chernozems are mixed with compost and sand.
The place is chosen without drafts with good sunlight, but not the south side. When exposed to the spring sun, the buds will grow rapidly in the spring and then die in the return frost.
How to plant hazelnut seedlings
In the spring, after 4 months of stratification, when the nuts began to germinate, they should be planted in pots or in a seedling box. Landing rules are normal:
- Prepare a wooden box or pots.
- Pour a fertile composition of sand, humus and earth.
- Make a recess of 6-7 cm.
- They put nuts on their side in them, since germination occurs through the spout of the fetus.
- Cover with soil and water.
- Cover with foil and put in a warm place for several days.
Seeds are sown for seedlings in rows with a distance between nuts of 8-10 cm, between rows – 35 cm. In this case, growing, the seedlings will not interfere with each other.
How to plant hazelnuts from a nut in open ground
Nuts are planted in open ground in the fall a month before snow falls or in spring, in already warmed up and dug up ground in advance. Spring planting is carried out with nuts that have undergone stratification. The algorithm is the same in both cases:
- Make grooves, palm-width deep.
- Lay the nuts on their side at a distance of about 8 cm from each other if you plan to grow them in this place before 2 years of age. If this place is intended for 3 years of seedling life, then the distance should be greater.
- Sprinkle the nuts with earth by about 1-2 cm.
- Water immediately after planting and repeat a week later.
- Cover with foil to create a greenhouse effect.
In the spring, the film is periodically removed for ventilation and removed completely as unnecessary.
Hazelnut seedlings that have been grown in pots from seeds are planted in open ground, given that the distance between them should be about 5 m, as the hazel grows in width.
Care of young seedlings
A year after planting the nuts, young seedlings grow about 15 cm high and with a stem thickness of 3 mm. In this case, they can already be transplanted to a permanent place. If the seedlings have not reached this size and look weak, then it is better to transfer the transplant to the next year.
To grow hazelnuts from nuts at home, you need to carry out appropriate seedling care, which includes:
- regular watering;
- application of fertilizers;
- pruning;
- prevention against pests and diseases.
Weeding and mulching
To combat weeds that grow throughout the growing season, the soil in the trunk circle is loosened several times during the first 5-6 years of vegetation. It is necessary to loosen the soil in the trunk circle to a depth of 5-7 cm, no more, since the bulk of the roots occur at a depth of up to 20 cm of soil. The trunk circle should be no less than the diameter of the crown.
After the onset of fruiting age, loosening the soil in the near-trunk circle is stopped so as not to injure nearby roots and disrupt the process of fruit ripening.
In the future, the ground is mulched with dry grass, wood chips or other mulch, which protects the trunk circle from weathering, drying, and freezing.
Watering and top dressing
Hazelnut is known as a moisture-loving plant. Its fruiting largely depends on the provision of water. But an excess of moisture can cause the tree to grow sick and weak.
In dry climates, hazel should be watered regularly, at least 1-2 times a week. In the Moscow region, 1-2 times a month in the spring and autumn is enough, and 3-4 times a month in the summer. Hazel loves irrigation, which almost doubles its yield. To grow hazelnuts, one tree needs 2 mm of precipitation per year. Based on this, you can calculate how much water to water hazelnuts, if you subtract natural precipitation from this.
From the moment the tree began to bear fruit, 1-2 buckets of organic fertilizers (humus) are annually applied under each hazel. During fruit set, urea is added. In autumn, it will be useful to pour wood ash into the near-trunk circle.
Trimming and shaping
Pruning of hazelnuts is carried out for the same purpose as for other crops. It allows you to grow a tree with specified indicators, regulate growth, development, fruiting, life expectancy, productivity.
Thinning bushes creates a light, well-lit crown. This stimulates the growth of young shoots with fruit buds.
Pruning happens:
- post-planting;
- sanitary;
- rejuvenating;
- formative.
The first pruning is done after planting the seedling. Pruning of branches depends on the root system – the thicker the thin roots, the less branches and leaves need to be cut. Conversely, the smaller the thin roots, the stronger the pruning should be. This will help to grow a strong root system.
Forming pruning hazelnuts are of two types: under the form of a tree and under the form of bushes. Sanitary is often carried out in the spring to remove diseased, frozen and dry branches. Anti-aging pruning is done to hazelnuts after the age of 15-20 years.
Protection against diseases and pests
Hazelnuts are resistant crops against diseases and pests. Gardeners have noted that a tree becomes susceptible to fungal diseases if it grows in a wetland or is watered abundantly. In this case, you have to deal with infectious diseases.
The main pests that attack hazelnuts include:
- mouse rodents;
- motley woodpeckers;
- proteins;
- wild boars;
- aphid;
- beetles;
- caterpillars.
The most dangerous for hazelnuts are the walnut weevil and walnut barbel. Against the weevil, digging the soil, collecting the affected fruits, spraying the tree before the oviposition of the beetles is used. To combat the barbel, hazelnuts are treated with a 1% solution of colloidal sulfur.
For prevention purposes, in the fall after leaf fall, all fallen leaves are collected and burned. Then they dig up the ground under the tree. Also, in order to grow hazelnuts healthy, it is necessary to treat it 2 times a year with special fungicides and insecticides, which will free you from unnecessary trouble in case of diseases.
Preparation for winter
Young plants for the first 2-3 years are covered for the winter with a covering material so that they do not freeze out. In the future, hazelnuts do not require shelter for the onset of cold weather. It must be remembered that nitrogen fertilizers should not be applied abundantly and hazelnuts should not be watered at the end of summer and autumn. Otherwise, young shoots will begin to grow in large numbers, they will not have time to become woody before snow falls and freeze.
Tips from experienced gardeners
Before you start growing hazelnuts from nuts at home, you should familiarize yourself with the experience of those who have already done this in their area. Here are some of the tips for successful cultivation of hazelnuts:
- Planting wild hazel in your garden is not worth it – it gives small fruits. But you can use forest hazel to grow hazelnuts. For this, a fruitful hazelnut variety is grafted onto it.
- It is better to plant hazelnuts in the fall. This culture has a short dormant period, therefore, during spring planting, most of the seedlings do not take root.
- Do not get carried away with fertilizing the soil. Too rich black soil will stimulate the growth of branches and leaves, which will reduce the yield of hazelnuts.
- For successful weed control, you can grow some crops under a hazelnut tree, for example, cereals, vegetables, grass.
The gardeners’ advice that they share with each other often helps not to repeat their mistakes.
Conclusion
Growing a hazelnut from a walnut is the dream of a truly passionate amateur gardener. Having a healthy, tasty, nutritious nut on your site that gives a rich harvest is a great reward for the invested work in caring for hazelnuts. And you can get it, you just need to have patience – hazelnut fruits from seeds can appear only after 10 years.
