Friday, March 26, 2010
Hazels in full bloom
Well, it seems a little early, but the hazels have been in bloom for a full week now. Typically our hazels have flowered the first or second week of April. Evidently the warm March weather has been enough to get them going.
In our early years of growing hazels, I would get nervous during the bloom period…probably a vestige of my apple growing experience while growing up. Apples in bloom when hit with 26º temps will have nearly 100% crop loss. On several occasions during hazel bloom we’ve seen the temps hit zero degrees and once it reached -4ºF. The tiny red female flowers withered away and I thought that all was lost. As soon as the cold snap was over, though, they came out again. Were they the same blossoms? Did the plant make new female flowers? I don’t know. Whatever happened, there didn’t appear to be any crop loss.
So… it’s cold, and yet the hazels are blooming merrily away.
On the side bar you’ll see some pictures… The tiny, pink-red starburst feature on the tip of the bud, is a close-up of the female flower. (the male parts and female parts are separate on hazels) This is the structure that will develop into the future nut cluster.
The other picture shows both male and female flowers… The male catkins are the long, yellow-ish structures in this picture. They were elongated and shedding pollen when I took this picture. Higher up on the stem you can see the female flowers. If you don’t know what you’re looking for they’re hard to see sometimes…
The plants in these pictures were of 3yr old ForestAg Hazelnut seedlings that had been planted directly into sod in the spring of 2007.
