How to grow hazelnuts from nuts: tips and tricks
Hazelnuts are one of the healthiest nuts after walnuts. This fruit crop can grow up to 20 meters in height. Grow hazelnut growing in a garden plot is not difficult, the main thing is to follow all the recommendations and rules for growing it.
Content:
Selection of planting material
For planting, you must select ripe nuts. The optimal time for collecting seeds is September - October. The nuts must be without any damage. Also, the planting material should not emit a moldy odor. This indicates an unhealthy state of the nuts. This rule should be followed when choosing planting material in the nursery.
When purchasing seedlings, it is important to be able to distinguish them from wild hazel. It is better to choose seedlings with purple leaves. It is advisable not to choose seedlings grown from seeds. Preference should be given to layering. To distinguish them, you need to look at root. If it is fibrous, then these are layerings.
Preparing for landing
Hazelnuts grow well in sandy loam and humus-rich soils. It does not grow in wetlands, poor and dry soils. It is not recommended to place hazel in the lowlands and southern slopes of the mountains. Hazelnut seeds should be stratified for 3-4 months before sowing.
This procedure is carried out as follows: take a wooden box and pour wet sand into it.The seeds must first be kept in water for about 5 days. It is necessary to make holes in the boxes for oxygen access. It is important that the sand does not freeze, but does not exceed a temperature of 10 degrees.
During the stratification period, sand and nuts should be mixed once. If the seeds are sown in the spring, then stratification is carried out in peat, wet sand or sawdust. The temperature should be within 2-6 degrees. This procedure is necessary for the spring germination of hazelnuts.
Reproduction methods
There are several ways reproduction hazelnuts: by seeds, dividing the bush, suckers, grafting. Seed propagation is the simplest and easiest way to grow hazelnuts. Nuts are planted in autumn or spring after stratification has been completed. Sowing of planting material can be done both in open ground and in containers. When planting in open ground, the nuts should be deepened by 4-5 cm. The distance between plants is about 8 cm, and between the rows it is necessary to make 15-20 cm.
After planting, the soil should be mulched with humus or peat chips.
If the soil is acidic, then you should definitely treat it with lime - you will need 500 g per square meter. It is better to do this a year before planting, otherwise the seedling will not take root. The soil needs to be dug up and weeds removed.
Shoots in spring may be rare or even absent due to unsuccessful stratification. You should not be afraid of this, since in subsequent winters stratification will occur completely, which means seedlings will appear. The method of dividing a bush can also be carried out in a garden. To do this, you need to divide the dug out bush into several parts so that each of them has a stump with a root system of 15-20 cm.
Then they are planted separately. Grafting is carried out in various ways: by butt, by splitting or by the bark. When choosing a propagation method, you should consider variety and the type of plant, as well as its condition and age.
Planting and care
Planting of seedlings should be done in the fall. It is necessary to make holes for each bush measuring 60x60 cm. Mineral fertilizers and humus per tree of 15 kg are added there. From mineral fertilizers, superphosphate is chosen - 150-200 g, potassium salt - 50 g. After this, the top layer of fertile soil is added.
The root system should be carefully straightened and lowered into the hole, covered with earth. It should be remembered that during planting the root neck should not be closed. Before you plant seedlings, they need to be cut to 20-25 cm, the roots should be dipped in a clay-manure mixture. Each seedling is placed at a distance of 4-5 meters. After planting, the seedling must be well watered. After 7 days, watering is repeated.
The soil around the hazel needs to be loosened and mulched. This is necessary so that moisture remains in the ground for a long time.
It is important to remember, in order to prevent the bark from warming up, the mulch should not come into contact with the trunk. In the future, hazelnuts should be moistened 1-2 times a month. In hot weather, you need to regularly check the soil, as some varieties experience active fruit growth during this period. Depending on the age of the hazelnut, the amount of watering will depend. You can moisten the soil around the trunk or dig a hole near the hazelnut and pour in water.
Organic fertilizer is used as fertilizing. Before the growing season, phosphorus-potassium supplements are added fertilizers. As the ovaries grow, hazelnuts are fertilized with 0.5% urea. During fruiting, 1-2 buckets of humus are added under the trunk.In the autumn, the young tree is fed with wood ash. A couple of years after planting, the plant should be formed. To do this, pruning is done. Hazelnuts do not require special care; if you follow the above recommendations, there will be no problems when growing hazelnuts.
Video on how to plant hazelnuts correctly:
