Orchard People

[00:00:00] Introduction and Welcome
The following program does not necessarily represent the views and opinions of Reality Radio 101, its advertisers and sponsors, or its listening audience. Listener discretion is advised.
Welcome to the Urban Forestry Radio Show here on Reality Radio 101. In this radio show and podcast we learn about fruit trees, permaculture, aboriculture, and so much more. So if you love trees, and especially fruit trees, or if you're interested in living a more sustainable life, then this is the place for you.
I'm your host, Susan Poizner, of the fruit tree care training website, OrchardPeople. com. Thanks for tuning in, and enjoy the show.
Welcome to the Urban Forestry Radio Show with your host, Susan Poizner. To contact Susan live right now, send her an email. InStudio101@gmail. com.
And now, right to your host of the Urban Forestry Radio Show, Susan Poizner.
[00:01:52] Hazelnut Trees and Truffles: A Perfect Pair
Some things just go together well. I'm thinking about pancakes and maple syrup, or toast and jam. Or if you're the healthy type, maybe rice and beans. Frank Sinatra in one of his old classic songs said one of the classic combinations is love and marriage, which he says go together like a horse and carriage.
But there's one winning combination that I never knew about and that's hazelnut trees and truffles. Not the chocolates, but those really pricey mushrooms that are fantastic in risotto and other dishes. In today's episode of the Urban Forestry Radio Show, we'll talk about hazelnut trees. We'll discuss why they've become such a popular crop for growers.
And we'll talk about cultivars and how to grow them in your yard or orchard. We'll also talk about truffle inoculated hazelnut trees. My special guest today is Adam Koziol of EarthGen Tree Nursery in Ontario. And Adam is here with me in the studio and he'll tell us everything that we need to know about hazelnut trees and truffles.
So let's get ready to dig into the topic today. Adam, Koziol, welcome to the studio today. Thank you, Susan. It's a pleasure being here. It's so nice to have you. And I'm really excited to learn about hazelnut trees, in particular, how they can grow so well with truffles, really expensive mushroom.
How did you first get involved in that sort of little? Joint growing operation. We were contacted by some Spanish scientists that specialize in truffles. because they know of our root system, the way we grow our regular trees. we inoculate them with mycorrhiza. And that helps trees grow, faster because it produces a symbiotic relationship.
And truffles are a mycorrhiza, but a very specialized one. it just The made sense. So what you're saying is basically not only are you getting a benefit if you get an inoculated tree You could be growing truffles at the same time. But are you saying that those truffle little microorganisms will actually help your Hazelnut tree grow better?
Oh, they do. And I brought some samples, with me to show you.
[00:04:24] Growing Hazelnut Trees: Tips and Techniques
Like we have a 8 foot, truffle inoculated hazelnut tree and the regular hazelnut tree that I brought is only 3 feet. That's interesting. So we're seeing a good chance that there's going to be truffles on these inoculated trees.
Now I understand that first of all, truffles don't in nature necessarily grow in hazelnuts. Am I right? Like in nature, where would we find them growing? They grow on hazelnuts. It's very common in Europe. they grow on oak trees, sometimes pine. Pine trees are another, good one as well, I should say, and then, you might even get them on birch and beaches and, certain, other oak trees as well.
if you are actually whether it's in your backyard, you're growing your hazelnut tree that's inoculated, do you have to actually disturb the tree in order to get the mushrooms off to eat, or? No, you don't disturb the tree, but you can, Probably need a dog or very strong nose and you're going to get right down to the ground and a dog will tell you where it is.
So you'll dig a little hole and out comes a truffle and it usually grows about 2 inches to 8 inches below the surface. But the surface of the ground should be soft. That's one of the key ingredients because if it's heavy clay that you might have a truffle, but it'll be so compact that there's you'll never know that it's there.
So does this dog have to be specially trained? Actually, my scientist, we have a scientist that worked on our project last year, and he went out with his dog, and it's a Border Collie in Simcoe, Ontario, and they found the native truffles. in the pine forest. but this is not a specially trained dog.
And it's not specially trained. Your dog Rover can do this. It probably could. Or if it's not trained, it can be very easily trained because the fragrance of the truffle is distinguishable and strong.
[00:06:28] Truffle Inoculation Process
Now, you started this venture, in what year? Introducing, or are you just introducing now the inoculate age?
we started working, officially with the truffles last spring. So let's say March 1st. we did an experiment. We secured inoculum in Spain. Cause, truffle inoculum is the strongest form of getting the spores. 'cause you can get the spores, let's say you throw 'em in a blender and try it yourself, but it's not pure, but we get, you get certified inoculum and we, attached it to, certain, trees like the hazelnut and the English oak.
Okay. So you were experimenting it with it for the first year. We are, yeah. And so what happened? Okay. First, we followed strict protocol that the scientists required, as well. So we had special, growing media produced for us that was made out of shaved, pine bark, sterilized basically and peat moss.
So there's nothing in it. We didn't want any mushroom spores of any other, type interfering with us. we did not even fertilize the trees as well. The poor truffle trees were basically on their own and that, but as we progressed and learned, I would say, you know what, a little bit of fertilizer helps because they need to eat something because just pine bark and peat moss, there's nothing in it.
okay. And so what was the result? Did they grow differently than the inoculated ones? Did you see any evidence that it was working? at first, no, but then we put the roots underneath the microscope, and then there's certain things that you look for.
[00:08:17] Challenges and Successes in Truffle Cultivation
Now, let me, state that the truffle industry is very secretive, so there's no information out there.
So whatever you pick up, you keep under your hat. So we went on tours in Spain, and then you see pictures of a, what a truffle, Microrisor spore looks like and you take a picture of it while it's up there. So you bring it back and you compare with what we had and, analyzing our data. We said, yeah, they did here very well.
So have you had anybody, like a local farm or anything saying, yeah, we want to try this. we have quite a few people that want to try it, even some celebrities now get into that. Oh really? We want to know this stuff. That's not fair. No, people are watching us very closely. okay. the chefs especially.
It's going to, it's going to be very big. There's, some commodities traders that are watching us as well. And, even some other people from, Europe and Italy that are watching us and they want the results and I'm saying, we just tried it one year and from what I know, at the very, best from the time you inoculate to time you can get a truffle, the earliest is two years.
Okay. So our, one, and our trees are really 18 months old now and this is, their second winter and it's that they're going to come to. It's also controlled by temperature. Now, so the root temperature has to go down in order to, for the truffle to actually pop out of the mycorrhizae. So here in cold climates, we have an advantage.
Is that what you're saying? Like a cold winter will help activate, the mycorrhizae? it's a cold spring because the truffle we're working on is a burgundy truffle. So their season is really going to be, it could typically could be from August to the end of November, early December. Okay. but, our weather's been so hot this year.
just. It just changed this week. So there's nothing, to activate it yet. So I think that it has to be around, 10 degrees Celsius or below for a few nights and that because then the result is just like you see a mushroom just pops up overnight. And that's how quickly they can occur. Really? So once they settle in, so you, but you said it'll be two years mostly until you'll see any results.
in terms of, in terms of the mushrooms in terms of the hazelnuts, how many years does it take for a tree? people say about 7 to 11 years for it to be commercially feasible. But with our system, because our trees produce such a massive root system. So most of the biomass is actually in the roots rather than the stem.
even in oaks, we had acorns produced the second year. So with American hazelnuts, we, they start producing the second year, the hybrid hazelnuts the third year and by the fourth year, you're getting quite a few catkins and you can actually harvest a few. So your vision is that, eventually people could have entire farms where they're both harvesting.
The hazelnuts and they're harvesting the truffles. You get twice the income, Oh, exactly. Is that the vision? Do you know, has this been done anywhere else before? dual cropping, they're doing it in Spain. Okay, with hazelnuts and truffles. With hazelnuts and truffle, as well. I don't know.
I think they're doing it in Oregon. as well. Yep. So yeah, people are learning the benefits. Exciting.
[00:12:06] Q&A: Hazelnut Tree Planting and Care
we have a whole load of questions that have just popped in. Sure. So let's start with the end, shall we? Gary is just going to get me the questions here. Tara.
Tara says, Since hazelnuts are wind propagated, how far apart should the plants be along a row, and how far should the rows be apart? could one plant them to make a windbreak? nice idea. Just along one row, eight feet apart. So I'm going to ask you that question first. Planting distances.
Well, ideally, we say, the minimum distance would be 10 feet because, the hybrid hazelnuts are about 10, 12, feet tall and, the hazelnut grows and they need full sun exposure. If the plants and the branches go in between each other, you're not going to have any hazelnuts underneath.
but you want them far enough so you can maximize, your distance and get the hazelnuts on the ends of the branches. So you're saying the minimum is 10 feet apart. Now she, one of her thoughts is a wind break, packing them together, maybe a little bit tighter so that you're protecting the rest of your fruit trees.
you could, because hazelnuts are going to grow. You're going to, and if you want to leave it as a bush, it's going to be a very thick bush, very quickly. Yeah. And you're getting the edible hazelnuts as well. Yeah.
[00:13:36] Propagation Methods for Hazelnut Trees
Now she says, what are tissue cultured hazel plants compared to layered versus grafted versus seedlings?
Terry, you got some great questions here. So tissue cultured hazel plants. Versus layered, grafted, or seedlings. Okay, tissue cultures, is produced in the lab. So they take a sliver of, basically the tissue, and they root it out, in a, like a petri dish. And then they grow out, they get the roots and then they grow it out and then they send it out to the nursery and then the nursery can either grow it out in containers or they grow it out as a bare root.
It depends on what the systems they have. Layered is, where basically you take a branch and, there's different ways of layering, but the simplest one would be, Putting it in the ground and then it produces new roots where the ground is and then you cut it So basically you're bending your branch over you're burying it.
Yeah, and then it will grow a whole new plant Yeah, and it'll take about two years to get it to root out pretty cheap You know, like it's good if you don't have lots of money, but it's hard for mass production hard for mass production Okay, so that's what with her question is tissue cultured is better for mass production and layered is really good If you're a home grower, yeah Do you get grafted hazelnut?
they're trying it, but, like you're saying why, what we found is, so let's say you graft, an American variety with a European on top and, hazelnuts tend to sucker a lot. So then you get all these suckers out here and sometimes the stem that comes out, it's a lot nicer looking. So then somebody comes along and cuts off the grafted.
Oh, I see. Because it's scruffy. So basically, especially if you're growing it as a shrub, with multiple, rather than a tree, with multiple branches, why go to that trouble? Exactly, yeah. her last question is, and you've answered this, what type of propagation works best for a hedgerow? With the possibility of getting some nuts, bearing in mind their wind pollination, and can the hedge be grown by layering?
And the answer is yes, if you've got lots of time. Yeah, because if it's two years per, two years per sprout, you could do a bunch of sprouts. So that's terrible. Also, what do you want to do with your hazelnuts? If you're going to have 10 or 20 trees, do you really want to get into all these specialized, hybrids?
Because you need different varieties of hazelnuts to cross pollinate. So that's okay.
[00:16:13] Pollination and Cultivar Compatibility
So let's talk about, we got loads of questions, but let's talk about that for a second, because for instance, let's say in my community orchard, I have room for one hazelnut, one hazelnut bush. Will I get any fruit at all?
No. They don't self pollinate. They do not self pollinate. let's say I go to you and I say there's cultivar, give me a cultivar name, one of your favorites. Okay, I like Yamhill. Okay, so I say you like Yamhill, I'm going to get two Yamhills. Give me two Yamhills. You're still not going to get hazelnuts.
Oh my goodness, even if I plant them side by side and the wind is blowing. Because why? You need a different variety. See the, they have, the genes have to be able to cross pollinate. The same variety won't accept each other. Exactly.
[00:17:03] Commercial Hazelnut and Truffle Farming
okay, so I come back to you, I say, okay, I don't have lots of room in my community orchard, but I'll make room for another hazelnut, so I'm going to get Yamhill.
Can I pick any other hazelnut that you would sell? Or that anybody sells? No, it has to be compatible, because not all of them are compatible. Those hazelnuts are so fiddly, aren't they? They're they're like humans, right? you want to get married. You can't just pick anybody off the shelf.
You've got to pick one you like. pollination is a really important topic. We're going to go to Paul's question now. He's got a multiple question too. he says, We recently bought one hazelnut tree in a pot. It's about four feet tall at the moment, shrubby. Sounds okay. we live outside Philadelphia in the northern suburbs.
look at what Paul says. I read that you need two trees for proper cross pollination and production of hazelnuts. Is this true? And we've answered, Paul, yes it is. But I just got to say, and correct me if I'm wrong, you'll still have a very nice looking plant. If you plant one by yourself, by itself.
Oh, yes. It just won't produce any fruit. And you can prune it into a tree. If you like something pretty. You can prune it into a tree. It's an attractive tree. You just won't get hazelnuts off of it. Yeah. Okay. then he says, what sort of sun exposure does it need to thrive? Full sun. Hazelnuts need full sun.
And he says, and. Will deer eat this tree even without nuts on it? We have many deer. Yep. Okay, I'm so sorry Paul. We got some bad news for you. So you're gonna have to do, you're gonna have to do some, I don't know, fencing or something around your hazelnut because the deers are, they're gonna love it.
They'll find it delicious. Okay, let's see. Let's do another. Okay, Matt. Matt. We got Matt's question. Matt says, I live in a house with a small lot, so I'm hoping to convince my mom to grow a couple of hazelnut trees. And I was wondering how much maintenance is pruned annually?
And do they have many pests? That's Matt from Waterloo, Ontario. they really don't have that many pests, especially if it's going to be in a yard, backyard, because the, Japanese beetle is a nasty little bugger by my term and that, but the backyard doesn't really have them, unless you're in an agricultural area.
they will sucker. So either, use the lawnmower and just go over them and, or prune them, in the fall. we like pruning late in the fall, so you don't get any diseases or insects, attacking the plant after. Okay, and this is if you're growing it as a tree. So here you've got this shrubby bush.
the ones you brought, some of them are bit shrubs and one, one or two is like tree like. But if you've got a shrub, you're gonna remove all the branches except for one, let that guy sprout, maybe shorten it a bit, let that guy sprout and grow it as a tree. As a tree. And that's Perhaps what you might do, Matt, in your garden.
Let's just look. Alice has sent an email. Okay. Hi, Susan. This show is very interesting. Thank you, Alice. Does your guest sell to individuals or just wholesalers? And she's listening in Philadelphia. we sell to individuals, but to get one or two trees to Philadelphia, you have to get vital sanitary certificates and then shipping.
Unless you come down and see Niagara Falls and drive by and stuff. Yeah. but, but yeah, you do, cause there's a lot of listeners in Canada as well. So in Canada, you'll sell to everybody. And also, Alice, I'm sure there are going to be hazelnut growers or, Fruit tree nurseries. If, Alice, if you go to orchardpeople.
com and you can see, you or you can google orchard people, fruit tree nurseries. And in one of those fruit tree nurseries in my ebook, they will tell you if they have hazelnuts. Okay. Julie has an email. Oh, okay. Julie says, I have a biodiverse orchard with hazelnut trees in Georgian Bluffs, Ontario.
Does the type of hazelnut influence whether or not the truffles grow? For example, American hazelnut versus a cross between European and American hazelnut. What a good question. Thank you, Julie. Yeah, no, it won't matter what type of hazelnut it is. Okay, so in this case, we're going to learn how to inoculate an existing orchard as well.
So by next year, we'll probably have the process down. So it means that we can probably go out there and inoculate. The growing hazelnuts. That's amazing. So basically, an orchard will, from somewhere in Ontario or Quebec will reach out to you and say, okay, we're ready. Yeah. And you'll come and you'll bring, the inoculum or whatever, yeah, and you'll do the work and within a, hopefully a couple of years, hopefully they'll get lots of truffles.
That's correct. I'm sure there's a lot of interest, especially with chefs, oh my goodness, to get a source of that. I've got, Dave here. Dave is from Wisconsin. Oh, this is a good question, too. Do hazelnuts grow wild in the northern U. S.? Yes, they do. It's the American hazelnut. And there's, actually, it can be quite a very tall, shrub as well.
but the flavor is one of the factors that people look at. So let's say, if you're a big chocolate company, you want that certain flavor of these, European based hybrids because they taste better and Oregon is producing so many of those. But, the problem is, depends on what climate zone, you're in now.
if you're below a climate zone five. Then, the better tasting ones, there's nothing really out there. Now you're getting into Climate Zone 5. So basically, depending if you're in a colder climate, you can grow hazelnuts, they may taste good to you. But if you want to sell them to the big companies that make hazelnut spread, they'll say thank you, but no thank you.
that's correct. Wow.
[00:23:29] Cultivars and Disease Resistance
So Adam, we were talking a bit and you spoke to me a bit about cultivars. You spoke to me about native hazelnuts versus, hybrids.
Can you tell me a little bit, what are we talking about here? Are there like three different types of hazelnuts? Are there a hundred different types? Tell me about cultivars. Oh, there's quite a few. The big thing is, being in Canada, we want to have something that can withstand the climate. So the native hazelnut can do that.
And the native hazelnut doesn't get the blight. It actually carries the pathogens that give out the blight. if you bring a European hazelnut, and put it beside an American one, chances are it's going to get the Eastern Filbert blight. Okay, so what we want to do is, you have already some crosses that put the qualities of an American, but the flavors of the European, because the European ones are the ones that taste the best.
okay, you definitely don't want disease problems. You can go for a native. plant, cultivar. But how bad is it going to taste? is it going to taste bad or just not wonderful? Oh, no, they taste good. But there's connoisseurs out there that have certain standards.
Just like your wines. Okay. So if I get a hybrid that is, a mix of one of the tasty, delicious European cultivars together with a tough native cultivar, am I guaranteed not to get any pest or disease problems with that plant? there's no guarantee and there's always going to be something or something new is going to come along.
but they say there's, immune to blights, varieties already. So how many, I'm just curious, how many different cultivars do you guys carry at EarthGen? I got about 10 different ones. How many do you think there are out there in the world?
[00:25:30] Exploring Hazelnut Cultivars
Oh, I couldn't even tell you. There's so many. The European ones, jeez, we tried so many in the last 10 years.
and a lot that did get, the blight. Used to be The Barcelona is the, used to be the favorite one and that's what Oregon was out there and that's the one that got the blight as well. But that was the favorite one because it was a really nice large nut. You'd get it in the stores, you still get them as well.
[00:25:57] Developing New Hazelnut Varieties
So the University of Oregon came out and invented a lot of new ones. And they're coming out with new ones all the time as well. Even Rutgers is working on their varieties from the East Coast. and then, we're trying, we're playing ourselves with some as well. So until we get something, working that we would like and be acceptable, then we'll start cloning them.
I see. So you whittled down your cultivars that you're sending, you tried a whole bunch, you picked. to your 10 favorites, I'm guessing. Yeah. what was available? of what was available. And now you're trying to develop your own special fancy. Sure. we're letting some crossbreed and then we plant them and then we see how they're going to take.
And so with those we'll cross them even. Maybe you can make one, the urban forestry radio show, hazelnut. We could have one named after our show, I think that would be fun. I also have a scientist, he's from the States, from Arkansas, that wanted to, micrograft onto tissue culture. So we have, so it'll be a self pollinating hazelnuts. So you have two or three varieties on one plant. Oh, now that would be terrific. Yeah, especially if you're a grower with a small backyard. Exactly. You don't have room for two big 10 foot wide shrubby trees. Yep. so that would be a nice option. But that doesn't exist yet. it's possible.
It's possible and it could happen.
[00:27:26] Cultivar Recommendations and Shipping
So I've got an email here from Tara. Okay, and it looks like, by the way, for Gary's list, Tara is Canadian. Hi again, a follow up question if I may. Would you be able to suggest cultivars for locations such as Midland, Guelph, Orangeville? And then she asks, could bare root tissue cultivated truffle inoculated plants be shipped out and survive the transportation in those areas?
What do you say to Tara? So she's first asking about suggested cultivars. Yeah, Midland is, we have a bunch that are going out of Guelph and certain areas even north of Alliston. And you can send your plants across Canada, right? Yeah. Yeah, anywhere in Canada. B. C. is a little different because you're not, because they had the blight with there, so I don't know the borders open for shipping into B.
C. Okay. we'd be careful there. Okay, so any of them. Now, are there, do you have favorite cultivars that you would suggest for, Midland, Guelph, Orangeville? Or just in terms of, is it just pick something that sounds good to you? right now, we're very limited in our availability. What we're doing is we're rooting cuttings out for a lot. So we're doing some with seedlings and then tissue culture. So it depends. So some varieties we have to root out the cutting because we don't have any tissue culture in a lot of these, let's say, more northern acceptable areas. So what does that mean?
Does that mean that you just don't, you're sold out of everything, or? I'm sold out for this year on hazelnut. For this year, but for next spring, though. not for spring, for next fall. Next fall. So we're limited as well, You know what, and I always say when, I teach people about fruit trees, I always say, order your specialist nursery fruit tree up to six months in advance.
And, you're showing that if you want something special, something easier to grow, you have to do your pre planning. It gives you time, by the way, to improve the soil, to do a cover crop, to really get it right. I think that's, a great idea. So if, yeah, so that's something people would consider.
So give us two of your favorite cultivars in terms of flavor then. One flavor, Yamhill and Jefferson, and then there was the Tonda Di Giffoni, which is the center of that chocolate that they use, and they're growing for us as well, and it's not supposed to be in this climate zone, Oh. what happens with our root system is, because of, the relationship with the micro, and we're talking a regular hazelnut, not the truffle one, and that, our trees produce, a lot of, a lot more, carbohydrates, They sequester about a thousand times more carbon dioxide than, let's say a bare root tree, but the carbohydrates make it a denser tree and, thus enabling it to go into winter and when it freezes, to withstand the cold because there's more antifreeze being produced in it, whereas when you get a southern or a tree from, let's say, Oregon or Washington, it comes out from a climate that there really is no winter.
And then it comes into minus 20, and then it's just like a block of ice and it explodes. Oh, interesting. I got an email here from Gail. Gail, we don't know where you're from. So send us another email. Tell us where you're from. But I love your email. Thank you. You say, just love the show. Very interesting.
Who knew? Thank you. Thank you so much, Gail. That's lovely. okay. There are, like you say, dozens if not hundreds of cultivars. EarthGen is one place people can look it up, but in Specialist Fruit Tree Nurseries, they can google Orchard People Specialist Fruit Tree Nursery and they'll get my e book where I have links to, I think, 50 plus Specialist Fruit Tree Nurseries.
across North America, and some of them have, many of them have nut trees. I should do another one just for nut tree nurseries, actually, but I think I do have nut tree nurseries in there.
[00:31:44] Soil Preparation and Planting Tips
once you choose the cultivar, how much trouble are hazelnuts, do they have to have just the right kind of soil?
Is the pH important? Like, how fussy are they? hazelnuts are extremely hardy and tolerant for a lot of things. But the getting back to the soil, that is one of the key things. So a lot of people I've even seen, they started planting. They dug a hole in a cornfield, for example, with the stalks still there.
that's not proper prep. The best way is. Go into your field, have it ripped, so it means just turn the soil over, and that, or, and if you can let it sit a year at least, and let all the debris kind of, compost, and then soften it, tilling is very important, and then you put it into a softer ground, then they're going to produce.
And your survival rate is going to be a lot better. So with everything you plant, if you have that extra attention to the soil, you'll just have a better, healthier plant. In the long term, right? In the long term. So Gail, you're from Chicago. That's great. So that's great. okay, now I have some questions here from LaRue in Omaha, Nebraska.
I love this. How should somebody plant hazels differently for in town, for attracting wildlife, or for commercial production? What are the different considerations? And myself, as a community orchardist in an urban environment, what are the things we need to think about in terms of should we even be planting hazelnuts?
I believe you should be. you're always going to lose some to some of the wildlife. you're going to get a blue jay that's going to come down and steal one or two. a raccoon, would like it. Maybe even a neighbor. We have that problem in our orchard, yes. Exactly. But if you take proper precautions, you should get a good crop in terms of precaution.
So if you're planting in the city, squirrels are a big problem, right? We have no natural enemies for the squirrels. So could we net? Yes, I would say net. And in the city, I would keep it as a tree form. And then you put those cones on, on the trunk. So little guys can't get up. Yes. Oh, you know what? We saw a squirrel in our backyard climb up a sunflower.
He went right up the sunflower, got to the top of with a big heavy heads. He then him and the sunflower tipped over sideways. They all felt, fell over to the side and it was such a smart squirrel because he knew he was going to break the sunflower and then he could get the seeds.
That's right. So these guys are smart, unfortunately. okay. in the country we talked about, distance for commercial production and, LaRue also asks, what are some good companion plants for hazels, i. e. other bushes, trees, low lying plants? Do they play well with other creatures, like other animal, sorry, other plants?
there's people that try, lavender, for example, if they want, a good crop. I wouldn't plant, let's say, hay, which has a lower value and be hard to get into, and it's going to compact the soils. But, yeah, there's crops that could be out there, or vegetables, high yielding vegetables that you clear out, every season as well.
And even, if it's lavender, if it's, you can plant the pollinator plants, to attract pollinators. Now, do pollinators do the pollination, or is it wind pollination only with hazelnuts? It's wind pollinated. But the pollinating tree also produces, hazelnuts as well. it's not just a barren tree and they both cross pollinate.
but, you wouldn't find a bee or a butterfly hanging around your hazelnut. No, typically, the pollination starts in late May, early, early April. So it's, everything's still frozen. Unlike an apple tree where, or cherries where the blossom comes out and if you get a frost, it kills it. But over here, you get a tiny little flower that comes out in the cold weather and the pollen is just, dispersed in the wind.
So we have an email from Steve and Steve says, Hi Susan, I love your guest. We are in Orlando, Florida. I'm assuming our climate is perfect for the trees. What do you think? I think it's too hot. Really? Yeah. these hazelnuts, even though they like full sun, they like a cold winter. They like, they like some, I think it had to go, let's say, we'll convert it to Fahrenheit, maybe 25 degrees Fahrenheit, which is minus 5 or minus 7, that I read before, for a few weeks.
Okay. So sorry, Steve. You guys in Florida, you can plant almost anything. We're jealous of you. So I'm sorry. We have to have one or two things that we can plant that you can't plant. I'm sorry, Steve. You can't have everything. But thank you for emailing. Okay. So Steve is in Florida.
[00:36:56] Challenges and Solutions for Hazelnut Growers
I've got also an email, I got this on Facebook from Sarah from Ottawa, Ontario.
Sarah says, I've been struggling with eastern filbert blight on all of the hazelnuts in my one third acre urban food forest and pruning out infected branches just is not working. Is there any advice for managing this disease? Will I lose all my hazelnut shrubs? I believe you will. I, Basically, cut my losses, burn them, and then start over with what?
With more hazelnuts or should she just try something? if you want more hazelnuts, but get the, blight, resistant ones. Yeah. Yeah. I'm so sorry, Sarah, if you're listening to the show.
I'm just curious about you, actually, Adam.
[00:37:49] The Journey into Hazelnut Farming
You don't come from a farming background?
What's your background? How did this all happen? Marketing. How do you get from marketing into being, growing all sorts of trees, hazelnuts, and you grow other trees as well, right? yeah, we had about 80 varieties. and, the way it came about, I have a friend that's, in the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers and wanted to go into business with me.
And he said, let's go grow mahogany trees down in the Caribbean. but they were so obviously you didn't do that. Yeah, his job was to, reforest the floodplains of the Mississippi, Missouri areas because the floods come and everything that they planted were always die. So they developed, some systems of keeping trees alive a lot longer by having them produce thousands of feeder roots.
And even underwater, when there's thousands of feeder roots, they still take some oxygen. Okay. and survive. So in the end, is he in this business with you today, or he just got you interested in this idea? He got me interested in so many of the things, went, because he went down the different areas.
So he's down there doing Hurricane Florence now and so they won't let him retire. Oh my goodness. He's a busy guy. Wow. We've got an email right now from Let's see. Law. Maybe Law? I think that's your name. Hi, Susan. Oh, no. Your name is Gigi. Hi, Susan. This is Gigi from Niagara Falls.
[00:39:24] Truffle Cultivation with Hazelnuts
I would like to ask the question, Why choose burgundy truffle?
Would another type of, truffle work as well for a hazelnut tree? Great question. Thank you, Gigi. Why? the burgundy truffle, we can harvest, throughout October and November and maybe early December. The black truffle is a winter truffle and it, the season starts mid November to mid March and there's no way we're going to find any truffles in Canada in December or February or March.
Just because the soil will be frozen and you can't dig them out. It's frozen solid, yeah. huh. Now are there lots of, I, what a great question, Gigi, because I didn't realize there were that many different types of truffles. Are there more than two? Oh yeah, the cream of the crop is the Italian white truffle, but it can't grow in this climate.
Oh, I see. Yeah, it's very specialized to a certain region and. in Italy and have you tasted all these different types of truffles? Oh, the black truffle, yes. And that, and even the Chinese ones, which are really the low quality one, but the black truffle is amazing. Where did you have it? In Spain. My goodness.
Yeah, and I'll give you, because we take, took this, seminar, and, after the seminar, they gave us a truffle to take with us. So we took it, go back to our hotel room and it was in a little clamshell blister pack and has a tiny, hole in it. So it's supposed to preserve it longer. So we go to hotel room and then we went out for dinner with everybody else.
And as soon as you get off the elevator coming back, the whole floor just smelled of truffle and that. And then we, you have to eat them. afterwards because it's so powerful. And there were some people from North Carolina that decided to keep theirs and they shipped them with their luggage back to the States.
Everything got confiscated. Oh my gosh, they're not allowed to. No, you need special permits. Oh my goodness, they lost everything. and how valuable are these truffles? we're talking about the Burgundy truffle, which the Burgundy truffle is just a little less than, the black truffle. So enough to make your spaghetti for yourself and your partner.
How much Canadian? Let's say the good one's 1, 000 a pound. 1, 000 a pound. Yeah. Gee, this is really exciting for growers for sure. Commercial growers. Yeah. so Michelle. Interesting. Michelle is from NYC. Hi, Susan. Very good information as you helped me a lot today. That's thanks to my wonderful guest.
Thanks for the free advice from New York City. thank you, Michelle, for emailing in. Yeah, we've got just a few more minutes.
[00:42:12] Practical Demonstration and Final Thoughts
Gary is probably going to put our names in a hat for our contest, but I want to carefully take one of the plants. Put it on the table and I want you to show me how, where exactly we would be finding the truffles and also so for people who are watching us on Facebook Live, you can see a little bit about what the leaves of the plants will look like.
So we're going to carefully take this plant, bring it out and Adam knows he's only allowed to talk with his mouth near the microphone. So this is a hazelnut tree. It's 18 months old and this is the root system. Okay, so yes, we can see that. When you can see it, it's got thousands of feeder roots. Yes. Tiny little roots, okay.
Now the mycorrhiza attaches itself to the root tips. And then when it's ready, it's going to send, signals to the, the truffle mycorrhiza. And then at the end of the root tips. You're going to get your mushroom, the truffle. how, many inches underneath the soil would we find it? Oh, any, it can be anywhere from even, half an inch to ten inches or so.
It depends on the soil. But, with proper, maintenance, you want to keep the soil, Tilled about four fingers deep because you don't want the sun burning the truffles especially when it comes out So you want to keep them down about three three inches to ten inches, right? Now also now again, I am not that familiar with hazelnuts.
We haven't grown them yet in our orchard pretty shaped leaves It's the end of the season. But I think it's a beautiful shaped leaf. Do they have nice fall color? no. The American hazelnut gets color. Okay. But the hybrids, not really. Okay. would you say that with the hybrids, are they ornamental at all when you plant them as a shrub?
there is different ones. There's some that are burgundy. As well, it depends on how much European influence they have. Yeah. there's, so many different varieties of them. But, for a color like a red maple that we have, our native one, no. They're not as prominent. This is a really interesting example.
I don't know how old this plant is, but 18 months. 18 months. So you can see, you can grow it as a shrub, where you've got multiple branches. And let it sucker or you can decide on your trunk and grow it as a tree pruning off all the other options correctly. Hopefully you know about pruning. And then so if your tree starts, you could let it have branches at however high you want the branches to come out at, right?
Like usually as a tree, how many inches are feet until you let it branch? what we like to do is I like telling people the first year. Or maybe even to the second year. Let your plant grow normally so it photosynthesizes and most of the energy will go into the roots. Because the secret is a strong root system, and then you'll never really have to worry about its health or vigor.
So that's so critical. A lot of people think, we, want to get that height, but if there's no roots to it, you get bad weather conditions, it's dead. Yeah, so basically think of the needs of the tree before your own desires of about its future. Okay, let's carefully pull this back. So guys, oh my goodness, the show has come to an end. Who knew how quickly it would go? I'm going to say, we're both going to say goodbye for now.
Thank you so much, Adam, for coming on the show. It's been really interesting. We've all learned so much. And that's it for the Urban Forestry Radio Show today. I hope you liked it. If you want to learn more about growing fruit trees, go to OrchardPeople. com. If you want to listen to the beginning of this show, go to OrchardPeople.
com podcast and I'll put up the archived show very soon in a couple of hours. But also on my website, I have a blog, I have free ebooks and If you're ready to up your game in terms of fruit tree care, I have an online fruit tree care training course. My students include arborists, master gardeners, urban agriculturalists, and home growers.
So that's it for today guys. You've been listening to the Urban Forestry Radio Show on Reality Radio 101. I'm Susan Poizner from the fruit tree care training website OrchardPeople. com and thank you so much for being a listener of this show. I really look forward to digging into a new fruit tree care topic with you guys next month.
Take care. Bye.
You've been listening to the Urban Forestry Radio Show on Reality Radio 101. To learn more about the show and to download the podcast where I cover lots more great topics, you can visit orchardpeople. com slash podcast. The show is broadcast live on the last Tuesday of every month. And each time I have great new guests talking to me about fruit trees, food forests, and arboriculture.
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Thank you so much for tuning in. It's been wonderful to have you as a listener. And I hope to see you again next time.
Thank you for listening to the Urban Forestry Radio Show. With your host, Susan Poizner, right here on Reality Radio 101.