The Hazelnut Plant Catalog

Since our catalog is getting more options with our most recent research developments, here are some guidelines for a few kinds of plantings with specific goals. If you don't have very specific goals, or want a few to learn with, we suggest "Standard"! Keep in mind that a LOT more detailed information is available at the Short Course or on the Short Course DVDs.

For the Highest Production of kernel per acre, for bulk sale and processing, we suggest a mixture of Machine Picked, Just Plain, possibly some Medium and/or Large hazels, and a few Xtra Large because small production or no, people are impressed by big nuts. At least 15% Experimental or Machine Picked is recommended, and up to 50% or more depending on how agressive your culling will be.

For Local Human-Consumption Markets, same suggestions as for highest production above, possibly with a higher percentage of Large (including Experimental and Machine-Picked Large).

For Pick-Your-Own we recommend mostly Large, Medium and Xtra Large, about 30% or so Experimental. You may want to avoid Machine-Picked-Early material except where early ripeness is specifically desired, since those plants are most likely to drop the nuts off the bush before the people get there.

About Select Material. In many cases we suggest Select material if it is available and your budget allows. The parents of our Select tubelings have the best track records and most desirable characteristics of the over 1,600 individual plants in our database. Keep in mind, however that we have a backlog of harvest data not yet in the database, and there are more than a few plants currently tagged as "Experimental" that will be upgraded to "Select" as the databases are updated. Additionally, more than a few of these plants will no longer be called "Experimental" as their harvest data reaches the database. SO- we suggest allowing substitutions, particularly of "Experimental", for at least part of your "Select" order.

About Machine-Picked Material. 2013 marked the third year that we've harvested nuts for both eating and seed by machine (see the 2011 machine harvest video for some details on initial results). It's clear: this works well enough that machine harvest with this style of picker is definitely going to be a major direction for industry development. Also, in most cases it is already substantially less work to harvest by machine, even in our patchy research-oriented plantings.
For these reasons, we have integrated machine picked seed into most of our hazel seedling offerings. In the detailed catalog below you will find several specific kinds of machine picked seed, as well as indications for which tubeling types still come entirely from hand-picked seed. Medium and Large Nut Hazels may now contain some machine picked seed, from rows with sufficiently good and consistent performance that we are classifying the entire row as a particular class of parent plant. Currently all such rows are at Badgersett Farm 1 in Minnesota, but this may change with the 2014 harvest.

Please see What is a Tubeling? if you are not familiar with this term. These plants are seedlings, classified based on characteristics of the female parent and, for older parents, known progeny performance. In our experience, about 60% of seedlings strongly resemble the female parent, the remainder being various kinds of better and worse.

Special Offerings

ST-Haz Standard Hazels $10.00 ea

Since we're a research operation, we offer a wide selection of hazel seedling types, and it can get confusing! Order our "Standard Hazels" and we'll send you what we've got. Availability and shipment on your requested date are most likely with this selection! A good deal for test plantings, and can be the right choice for part of your production plan as well. These are most likely to be Machine Picked or Experimental Mediums and Larges, and least likely to be Wildlife or Select material. Breeding IDs not available.