Woody Agriculture Weblog
The Future of The World Is Nuts!(TM)

Trying to understand how and why and when and how much our hybrid hazels grow has been a continuing challenge.

A few things are starting to come clear, though, and like much else about these plants, what we're learning is startling. For one thing, the old dogmas about not fertilizing woody plants while they're young is clearly nonsense for the hazels; but it's taken us 20 years to really believe that ourselves.

We've been a little scared to show the plants in this photo in public. They are gorgeous, obviously- but here's the scary part- they are just a little over ONE YEAR old. No kidding; these are seedlings; not clones, planted in February 2003.

Now- understand, we've never been able to grow seedlings this big in the field; at least not yet. The plants in the photo were started just like the tubelings we sell- but then they were "upcanned" into 3 gallon pots in May; then upcanned again into 5 gallon pots in August. They've had good fertilizer their whole lives, and close to optimum watering (though in fact, we know they've been seriously under watered, and hurt, at least 2 times- ie; they could have been bigger...)

Something we think is true- when Badgersett hazels grow in pots, they "know" their roots cannot get any bigger; so they shift priorities, and start growing a big top. If the roots aren't constrained, they will grow big roots first; a big top later.

We think.

At any rate, what these spectacular one year old plants DO show is that the genetics are there to allow them to grow this big, this fast. All we have to do is find out how to do this in the field. (that's intended as humor, you understand.)

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