Until now, not all gardeners know that the well-known hazelnut can be grown on its site in the country, receiving annually a healthy and tasty crop. What is hazel - a bush or a tree depends on the variety.
A brief history of the hazel genus
In Russia, deciduous shrubs are common in the forest and steppe zones, 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 offspring.
Common hazel
For your information! In horticultural culture, mainly hybrids cultivated by crossing with related species are cultivated.
What does common hazel look like
The height of the adult bush reaches 2-5 m. The crown takes a spherical or ovoid shape. The root system is powerful and grows mainly horizontally. The 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 nearby, and even better of different varieties. Fruits - hard-shelled nuts with green bracts, combined in groups of 3-5 pcs.
Grade Features
Crohn can form like a tree or shrub. Life expectancy is 80-100 years. Fruiting occurs in the fifth year.
Ripening period and yield
Flowers along with next year's buds are planted in autumn on young shoots. In spring, flowering begins before foliage, and a 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 cultivars that produce up to 8 kg from the bush.
The taste of nuts
As soon as the first nuts begin to fall, the harvest starts. All the fruits of hazel are harvested at once and put in a dry, dark place to dry for 2-3 weeks. Every day you need to tidy the expanded crop. You can store dried nuts for 2-3 years. The taste of nuts is considered pleasant or neutral without pronounced bitterness or sweetness, which in cooking is considered an advantage.
Note! Halva, cookies are prepared from hazel, and added to chocolates.
Beneficial features
The list of useful properties of hazel is quite impressive:
- improves blood composition;
- stimulates lactation;
- normalizes pressure;
- restores immunity and strength;
- helps in the treatment of kidney stone disease, 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 and frost resistance
Young seedlings in the first three years of life are most vulnerable. They organize watering and shelter from frost for the winter. Adult bushes are not afraid of drought and frost (frost resistance up to −40 ° С).
Resistance to diseases and pests
Hazel suffers from aphids and the invasion of specific pests. Of the diseases, powdery mildew, rust and white rot cause the most damage to plantings.
The use of nuts in medicine
For medical purposes, hazel is used to quickly restore strength after surgery and illness. Walnut has a high calorie content, is rich in vitamins and minerals, fiber.
Important! In women giving birth 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 propagation;
- unpretentiousness to the neighborhood with other shrubs and trees.
Disadvantages:
- expect a first crop when sowing seeds will have at least five years;
- the first three years, seedlings need shelters for the winter and regular heavy watering.
What other types of hazel are
In total, about 20 varieties are known that are cultivated exclusively in open ground, of which the following are considered the most popular.
Hazel tree (Corylus colurna), or bear nut
In the wild, distributed in the North Caucasus in the middle mountain zone. Hazel grows with a tree up to 20 m tall, living up to 200 years, not giving root offspring. It is hard to believe that this is hazel. Very hard-shelled nuts are in a soft wrapper. Harvest years alternate with 2-3 years of complete downtime.
Bear nut
Hazelnuts (Corylus Heterophylla)
Shrub 2-4 m tall. Fruits are formed in 2-3 pcs. on thin long legs. The nut wrapper is green, velvety in shape resembles a bell. The name indicates that the leaves form different: on the upper branches are dark green and bare, and on the lower ones - a lighter shade and pubescent.
Hazel
Manchurian Hazel, or Siebold (Corylus Mandshurica)
A shrub 3-4.5 m high has an interesting form of pericarp of nuts: tubular, strongly elongated up to 6 cm long. Because of this, collecting and removing 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.
Manchurian hazel
Hazelnuts (Corylus atropurpurea)
An unusual variety 2-3 m high with red (purple) leaves was bred in the UK in 1836. It is valued not only for large fruits, but also for a decorative crown widely used in landscape design. Frost resistance is slightly lower (up to −29 ° С).
Leafy hazel
Large hazel (Corylus maxima), or Lombard nut
A bush or tree 3-10 m high. Bears large (up to 2.5 cm in diameter) nuts, enclosed in a red or green wrapper of a tubular elongated shape with wide toothed lobes. The leaf may also be dark green or burgundy.
Note! The species has been known since ancient Greece and is famous for its pleasant almond taste and fat content (up to 60%).
Lombard nut
Common hazel: planting and care
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 to one year.
Spring planting
There are no differences from the autumn method, but you will have to prepare a pit for planting in the autumn so that the soil can be properly compacted. The seedling should have strong, but not yet bursted buds.
Autumn landing
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 with a width of 50-80 cm, a depth of 50-60 cm.
- The land for backfilling 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 the old bushes of hazel, enriched with the necessary microflora.
- The day before planting, the stalk is soaked in a mash of water, clay and a small amount of rotted manure.
- The root neck is overestimated by 5 cm above the soil surface.
- Be sure to drive a peg into the hole for the garter of the bush for the first time.
- After filling the roots, the bush is watered abundantly.
- The soil under the nut is mulched with peat or sawdust.
Features of seasonal care
Young plants require the most attention. From the third year on, the nut almost does not need to be taken care of, with the exception of sanitary pruning, drought watering and harvesting.
Watering and feeding
Watering during drought is required 1-2 times a month. Pour 10 liters of water under the bushes. The next day, the soil under the nut must be loosened.
Note! In the spring, after swelling of the kidneys, it is necessary to feed with ammonium nitrate, and in the fall - potassium-phosphorus fertilizers. Every three years, the soil is dug around the bushes, introducing organic matter.
Flowering care
Pollination occurs with the help of wind. When hazel blossoms, male earrings scatter pollen for an average of 12 days, and female flowers stay open until 14 days. Something to do in terms of care at this time is not required.
Preventative treatment
Hazel beetles attack the most. They will need to treat the bushes with insecticides in advance: karbofos, chlorophos or actellic. From fungi, they are treated with the advent of spring with copper sulfate or Bordeaux liquid.
Hazel pruning
By trimming, you can form a tree or bush. They usually spend it in winter. Try to remove all branches where hazel grows, creating excessive thickening. Fruits are formed only on the young shoots of this year. Every 20 years, a rejuvenating formation is carried out, leaving the ground part no more than 30 cm high with the strongest and healthy shoots.
Winter preparations
Only in the first 2-3 years after planting seedlings do they need to create shelters for the winter. They are made from an agricultural canvas, wrapping a crown or bending branches to the soil and covering them from above.
Breeding
Hazelnuts are cultivated plants that are extremely easy to propagate by any vegetative path. They are rarely planted with nuts, since it is impossible to predict which plant will turn out, and fruiting for the first time may occur after 10 years.
Cuttings
In summer, cuttings of 10-12 cm long are cut from young mature branches. They are instilled in a greenhouse, always covered with transparent caps. It usually takes up to a month to root, after which the seedlings are transferred to a permanent place.
Dividing the bush
The bush can be dug up and divided into 2-3 parts. Do this with young plants (up to 5 years) and only in the spring.
Layering
Long enough method. They bend the branch to the ground and scratch the bark at the point of contact to create conditions for rooting. Fix the shoot with a hairpin and sprinkle with soil. This place is abundantly watered all summer.
Note! If rooting is successful, the young bush is planted in two years.
Offspring
After 3-4 years, the bush will give an abundant root shoot, which has been dug up and transplanted to a new place since the beginning of summer.
Wild Hazel Inoculation
Having a cultivar on the site, it can be used for scion on wild-growing hazel.
Note! At the beginning of summer, dug 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 suffers most from thickening, therefore, it is necessary to create conditions for productive growth: prune, remove root shoots, and not plant tall trees too close.
From the description above, it becomes clear why hazel does not bear fruit in the gardens, if there is only one bush. This is the main reason why there are no nuts on hazel.
Disease
Rust, white rot and powdery mildew are common diseases that cause hazel to suffer from. It is necessary to carry out the first treatment every year after blooming leaves with copper sulfate or Bordeaux liquid. Re-conduct after 2-4 weeks.
Pests
Walnut leaf beetle, hazelnut barbel, nut weevil are specific hazel pests. They fight with them 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 cortex, it is better to cut and burn such an escape.
An ordinary hazel is an unpretentious shrub that has a beautiful crown and gives nutritious and tasty nuts every year. Planting it in the garden today is not difficult, nurseries offer a wide selection of varieties with high productivity (up to 8 kg per bush).
