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From amateur gardeners you can often hear a complaint that hazelnuts do not bear fruit. Moreover, the bush is already an adult and even blooms. For many gardeners, hazel serves as a decoration for a personal plot, but does not give nuts. The problem with fruiting can be solved, but first you need to find out the exact reason why the hazelnut does not bear fruit.
How many years does it take for hazelnuts to bear fruit?
Hazelnuts have been growing in the garden for decades. Seedlings grown from seeds enter their first fruiting at 6-8 years. With vegetative propagation, they begin to bear fruit in 3-4 years. The productivity of hazel grows gradually. The peak of fruiting falls on the age period from 7 to 20 years.
In order to prolong fruiting, the bushes rejuvenate – they carry out a strong pruning. In the southern regions, flowering begins in March, in the temperate climate of the middle zone – in April. The flowers of the hazel are monoecious, wind-pollinated.
Male hazel inflorescences are earrings up to 10 cm long, and the female flower looks like a kidney. It is formed at the top of an annual shoot, consists of a pistil and stigmas collected in a bundle. The larger the stigma, the more nuts will form during pollination. One hazel earring gives up to 4 million grains of pollen, this happens for 4-12 days.
Why there are no nuts on the hazel
The reason that the hazel does not bear fruit may be the low self-fertility of the hazel. If 1 hazel bush grows in the garden, then the probability of pollination and fruiting of the hazel tends to zero. In the garden, to get a decent harvest, you need to have several fruit-bearing hazelnut bushes. Moreover, they must be of different varieties and bloom at the same time.
For example, varieties of hazel Pirozhok and Borovskoy are good pollinators for hazelnut Shedevr. It is believed that for a good harvest for 10 hazel bushes, at least 2 pollinators are needed. For good fruiting, they should grow within a radius of 10-15 m from the pollinated plant, located from it on the leeward side.
Varieties considered good pollinators are:
- Tambov;
- Ivanteevsky red;
- Moscow ruby;
- Firstborn.
Hazel varieties with a long flowering period of male inflorescences are considered effective pollinators. Maximum fruiting can be expected from hazelnuts if there are 4 to 6 different varieties growing in the garden.
Wrong choice of seedling
For each region, you can choose a suitable variety of hazelnuts that bears fruit in a given climate. You can not wait for the harvest of nuts if you plant a southern variety of hazel in a dacha in the middle zone of the Federation. Information from the State Register can help in choosing.
Varieties of hazelnuts for the middle zone of the Federation | Maximum yield per tree (kg) |
Ivanteevsky red | 2,2 |
Academician Yablokov | 5 |
Moscow Early | 3 |
Kudrayf | 2,8 |
Purple | 3 |
First-born | 5 |
Early Tambov | 4 |
Almost all varieties of walnut have good frost resistance. The quality of fruiting is influenced by the flowering period of the variety and the weather conditions of the region. So that flower buds do not suffer from recurrent frosts, it is worth choosing varieties of hazelnuts that bloom for a long time and at a later date.
Wrong fit
The fruiting of hazelnuts directly depends on the planting site. Fruiting is poor or absent if the tree is planted in a draft. The culture will bloom, set fruits if planted in a place protected from the north and northwest winds.
Hazelnuts bear fruit and grow poorly if the soil is too dry or waterlogged. It will not begin to bear fruit if it is in the shade of other trees, a house, a fence or a barn. The quality of fruiting can be affected by the composition of the soil.
Hazelnuts show maximum fruiting on fertile, breathable soils and alluvial meadows. On other types of soils, for full-fledged fruiting, hazelnuts need regular watering, at least 5-6 times per season.
Improper care
Often, an overdose of nitrogen fertilizers makes hazelnuts fruitless and prevents fruiting. An excess of nitrogen stimulates an active growth of green mass at the expense of flowering. Hazel bushes do not bear fruit, in which the crown is too thick.
Therefore, when hazelnuts enter the fruiting period, it is necessary to thin out the inside of the bush. Young branches cannot be shortened, as the nut bears fruit on annual shoots. Pruning should stimulate annual powerful growth.
The appearance of new strong shoots guarantees good fruiting. Some varieties form a lot of root shoots. It depletes the bushes, leads to a decrease in fruiting. In the spring, when it grows to 8 cm, it must be cut at the very base.
A hazel bush that bears fruit for 5 years may stop flowering. This is due to the aging of the branches and the lack of young growth. Annual anti-aging pruning helps to restore normal fruiting. The need for it disappears after the restoration of normal shoot formation.
freezing
Very often, hazelnuts do not bear fruit due to return frosts. If during the flowering of hazel the thermometer drops to -3 ° C, you can completely lose the harvest of nuts. Unfertilized female flowers survive at -8 °C, while pollinated ones die at -3 °C. Male inflorescences go into winter ready to bloom.
Pollen in catkins begins to dust during long winter thaws, sterilizes when frost returns. At the same time, male flower buds at rest easily withstand low temperatures down to -30 ° C. It turns out that spring return frosts during flowering and prolonged winter thaws bring more harm to the culture.
Adverse weather conditions
The quality of pollination is affected by prolonged rains during flowering. High humidity prevents cross-pollination, rain washes away pollen. Experienced gardeners believe that rain does more harm than frost.
What to do if the hazel does not bear fruit
Accelerate fruiting helps the correct and timely formation of the crown. Yield depends on its quality. To rationally use the energy of a tree, you will have to master the basic techniques of gardeners:
- tweezing;
- blindness of the kidneys;
- control of the orientation of branches in space.
In spring, young bushes need to break out top shoots with their hands. Wound healing occurs in a matter of days. At old bushes, hazel tops are left. They serve as a backup. They are used to rejuvenate the crown.
If the crown froze in winter, then you need to wait with the removal of excess shoots and tops. Some of the branches may first bloom, and then die. In this case, tops will replace them. To accelerate fruiting, tweezing is used.
It is held from July 10 to July 20, it does not make sense to hold it later. Pinching is pinching the crown of the shoot over 3 or 5 true leaves. It prevents the development of a strong shoot, makes it overgrown.
To increase the number of flower buds, branches are bent at the hazel. Any fruit tree has more of them on those shoots that run parallel to the ground. This technique is especially effective for varieties of hazelnuts with late ripening.
Experienced gardeners accelerate fruiting by resorting to kerbovka. Making an incision above the kidney, stimulate the growth of the shoot, under the kidney – weakening. The kerbovka method is applicable to young trees.
Preventive measures for abundant fruiting
Having figured out why hazelnuts do not bear fruit, you can begin to eliminate the causes. There are several ways to protect hazel from spring frosts:
- In spring, when the temperature drops to -5 °C at night, carry out small-drop sprinkling, stop it 2 hours before the sun appears.
- In the absence of wind, use smoke. The smoke curtain raises the air temperature by at least 2 °C.
- Carrying out foliar feeding before frost increases the resistance of hazel. Spray the crown 2 hours before the temperature drops. Use 5% superphosphate solution and 3% potassium sulfate solution.
- If the hazelnut bush is low, then it is wrapped with a covering material before a cold snap.
If a hazelnut does not bear fruit due to the lack of pollinators, then the nut can be artificially pollinated. Pick up earrings, put them in a paper bag. Store only in the refrigerator. When good weather comes, lay a sheet of white paper on the table.
Place a vase with water and a branch of hazel in the center. The pollen will fall on the paper sheet. It needs to be put into a bag. Apply pollen to the stigmas of female flowers in the morning with a soft brush.
Conclusion
Problems that prevent hazelnuts from fruiting are better avoided during planning and planting than later corrected. For your garden, you need to choose winter-hardy varieties of hazelnuts that are suitable for a particular climatic zone, in which male and female inflorescences do not freeze slightly. Plant not one, but several varieties that bloom at the same time.
