Common hazel, walnut or hazelnuts - how to grow hazel in the country

Content:

Until now, not all gardeners know that the well-known hazelnut can be grown on your site in the country, getting a healthy and tasty harvest every year. What is hazel - a bush or a tree, depends on the variety.

A brief history of the hazel genus

In Russia, deciduous shrub is common in the forest and steppe zone, southern taiga, coniferous-deciduous forests, in the North Caucasus. It belongs to the genus Hazel (Corylus) of the Birch family. Common hazel (Corylus Avellana) in the wild forms dense thickets, as it is easily propagated by root suckers.

Common hazel

For your information! In horticultural culture, mainly hybrids obtained by crossing with related species are cultivated.

What does common hazel look like?

The height of an adult bush reaches 2-5 m. The crown takes a spherical or ovoid shape. The root system is powerful and grows mainly horizontally. Leaves are rounded, slightly pointed, up to 12 cm in length and up to 9 cm in width. Male (earrings) and female flowers are formed on the bushes, therefore it is recommended to plant at least three plants next to each other, and even better of different varieties. Fruits - nuts in a hard shell with green bracts, united in groups of 3-5 pcs.

Features of the variety

The crown can be shaped like a tree or shrub. Life expectancy is 80-100 years. Fruiting occurs in the fifth year.

Ripening period and yield

Hazel (walnut) is a tree or shrub

Flowers, together with the buds of the next year, are laid in the fall on young shoots. In the spring, flowering begins before the foliage appears, and the large amount of pollen attracts bees. Nuts ripen in August - early September. On average, one plant brings up to 1.5 kg, but there are also cultivars that yield up to 8 kg per bush.

Taste qualities of nuts

As soon as the first nuts begin to fall off, the harvest begins. All hazel fruits are harvested at once and placed in a dry, dark place to dry for 2-3 weeks. Every day you need to stir up the decomposed crop. You can store dried nuts for 2-3 years. The taste of nuts is considered pleasant or neutral with no pronounced bitterness or sweetness, which is considered an advantage in cooking.

Note! Halva, cookies are prepared from hazel, and added to chocolate sweets.

Beneficial features

The list of useful properties of hazel is quite impressive:

improves blood composition;
stimulates lactation;
normalizes blood pressure;
restores immunity and strength;
helps in the treatment of kidney stones, rheumatism and anemia;
has an anthelmintic effect;
stimulates hair growth;
helps with varicose veins.

Hazel is consumed fresh and fried, mixed with honey, oil is obtained.

Drought resistance and frost resistance

Young seedlings are most vulnerable in the first three years of life. They will be given watering and shelter from frost for the winter. Adult bushes are not afraid of drought and frost (frost resistance up to -40 ° C).

Disease and pest resistance

Hazel suffers from aphids and an invasion of specific pests. Of the diseases, the greatest damage to plantings is caused by powdery mildew, rust and white rot.

The use of nuts in medicine

For medical purposes, hazel is used to quickly recuperate after surgery and illness. The nut has a high calorie content, is rich in vitamins and minerals, fiber.

Important! In women in labor, it causes a rush of milk.

Advantages and disadvantages of the variety

The most valuable qualities of hazel are:

undemanding to lighting, easily tolerates partial shade;
frost resistance (up to −40 ° С);
stable yield;
fast vegetative reproduction;
unpretentiousness to the neighborhood with other shrubs and trees.

Disadvantages:

it will take at least five years to wait for the first harvest when sowing seeds;
the first three years, seedlings need shelter for the winter and regular abundant watering.

What other types of hazel are

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In total, about 20 varieties are known to date, cultivated exclusively in open ground, of which the following are considered the most popular.

Tree hazel (Corylus Colurna), or bear nut

In the wild, it is distributed in the North Caucasus in the middle mountain belt. Hazel grows as a tree up to 20 m tall, living up to 200 years, not giving root suckers. It's hard to believe that this is hazel. Very hard-shelled nuts are in a soft wrapper. Crop years are interspersed with 2-3 years of complete downtime.

Bear nut

Common hazel (Corylus Heterophylla)

Shrub 2-4 m tall. Fruits are formed in 2-3 pieces. on thin long legs. The walnut wrapper is green, velvety in shape, reminiscent of a bell. The name indicates that the leaves are different: on the upper branches they are dark green and bare, and on the lower ones - a lighter shade and pubescent.

Various-leaved hazel

Manchurian hazel, or Siebold (Corylus Mandshurica)

A shrub with a height of 3-4.5 m has an interesting shape of the pericarp of nuts: tubular, strongly elongated up to 6 cm in length. Because of this, the collection and extraction of nuts is somewhat difficult. The species has been cultivated in culture since 1882, but in Russia it is found mainly in the Moscow and Leningrad regions. Frost resistance up to -45 ° С.

Manchu hazel

Red-leaved hazel (Corylus Atropurpurea)

An unusual variety 2-3 m high with red (purple) leaves was bred in Great Britain in 1836. It is appreciated not only for its large fruits, but also for its decorative crown, which is widely used in landscape design. Frost resistance is slightly lower (down to -29 ° С).

Red-leaved hazel

Large hazel (Corylus Maxima), or Lombard nut

A shrub or tree 3-10 m high. Fruits in large (up to 2.5 cm in diameter) nuts enclosed in a red or green tubular elongated wrapper with wide toothed blades. The leaf can also be dark green or burgundy.

Note! The species has been known since the times of Ancient Greece and is famous for its pleasant almond flavor and fat content (up to 60%).

Lombard nut

Common hazel: planting and care

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Experienced gardeners prefer to plant bushes in the fall a couple of weeks before the onset of frost. This allows you to bring fruiting closer by one year.

Spring planting

There are no differences from the autumn method, but the pit for planting will have to be prepared in the fall so that the soil has time to properly compact. The seedling should have strong, but not yet burst buds.

Autumn planting

The correct step-by-step process looks like this:

Seedlings are selected with 3-4 strong shoots. The length of the rhizome is about 50 cm.
Pits are dug at a distance of about 5 m from each other at least a month before the expected planting date, 50-80 cm wide, 50-60 cm deep.
The soil for backfill is prepared according to the principle: the excavated soil is mixed with a bucket of humus, adding two glasses of wood ash and soil from under old hazel bushes, enriched with the necessary microflora.
The day before planting, the stalk is soaked in a mash made of water, clay and a small amount of rotted manure.
The root collar is overestimated 5 cm above the ground surface.
Be sure to drive a peg into the hole to tie the bush for the first time.
After filling the roots, the bush is watered abundantly.
The soil under the walnut is mulched with peat or sawdust.

Features of seasonal care

Young plants require the most attention. From the third year, the walnut needs almost no care, with the exception of sanitary pruning, watering in drought and harvesting.

Watering and feeding

Watering during drought is required 1-2 times a month. 10 liters of water are poured under the bushes. The next day, the soil under the nut must be loosened.

Note! In the spring, after swelling of the kidneys, you need to feed with ammonium nitrate, and in the fall - with potassium-phosphorus fertilizers. Once every three years, the soil is dug around the bushes, adding organic matter.

Leaving during flowering

Pollination takes place with the help of the wind. When hazel blossoms, male catkins scatter pollen for an average of 12 days, and female flowers stay open for up to 14 days. There is no need to do anything in terms of care during this time.

Preventive treatment

Beetles attack the hazel hardest. They will need to treat the bushes in advance with insecticides: karbofos, chlorophos or actellic. From fungi they are treated with the arrival of spring with copper sulfate or Bordeaux liquid.

Pruning hazel

By pruning, you can form a tree or bush. It is usually carried out in winter. They try to remove all branches where hazel grows, creating excessive thickening. Fruits are formed only on young shoots of this year. Once every 20 years, a rejuvenating formation is carried out, leaving the ground part no more than 30 cm high with the strongest and healthiest shoots.

Preparing for winter

Only in the first 2-3 years after planting seedlings do they need to create shelters for the winter. They are made from agricultural canvas, wrapping the crown or bending branches to the soil and covering them from above.

Reproduction

Hazelnuts are cultivated plants that reproduce extremely easily in any vegetative way. Nuts are rarely planted, since it is impossible to predict which plant will turn out, and fruiting for the first time may occur after 10 years.

By cuttings

In summer, cuttings 10-12 cm long are cut from young mature branches. They are dropped in the greenhouse, necessarily covered with transparent caps. Usually it takes up to a month for rooting, after which the seedlings are transferred to a permanent place.

By dividing the bush

The bush can be dug up and divided into 2-3 parts. This is done with young plants (up to 5 years old) and only in the spring.

Layers

Long enough method. The branch is bent to the ground and the bark is scratched at the point of contact to create conditions for rooting. Fix the shoot with a hairpin and sprinkle it with soil. This place is watered abundantly throughout the summer.

Note! If rooting is successful, the young bush is planted out after two years.

Offspring

The bush will give abundant root shoots in 3-4 years, which is dug up and transplanted from the beginning of summer to a new place.

Wild hazel grafting

Having a cultivar on the site, it can be used for scion on wild hazel.

Note! In early summer, dug out bushes are brought from the forest and planted in a suitable place. After 2-3 weeks, you can vaccinate in the standard way.

Possible problems in growing hazel

It is known that hazel hazel most of all suffers from thickening, so it is imperative to create conditions for productive growth: cut, remove root shoots, do not plant tall trees too close.

From the description above, it becomes clear why hazel hazel does not bear fruit in gardens if there is only one bush. This is the main reason why there are no nuts on hazel.

Diseases

Rust, white rot, and powdery mildew are common diseases that hazel suffers from. It is necessary to carry out the first treatment with copper sulfate or Bordeaux liquid every year after the foliage bloom. The second one is carried out after 2-4 weeks.

Pests

Walnut leaf beetle, hazel barbel, walnut weevil are specific pests of hazel. They are fought with them in the same way as with aphids: they treat the bushes with insecticides and acaricides: phytoverm, karbofos, actellik. The most alarming symptom is a bump on the bark; it is better to cut off and burn such a shoot.

Common hazel is an unpretentious shrub with a beautiful crown and nutritious and tasty nuts every year. Planting it in the garden today is not difficult, nurseries offer a wide selection of varieties with high yields (up to 8 kg per bush).