Hazel genetics in the pipeline-

We have a whole lot of directions we work on with the hazels; including "big nuts", "really thin shells" and "great flavor" - oh, and "a crop, that ripens no matter what".  Here, for example is one of our research plants - fully ripe now, although so many hazels are ripening very late this year:

It doesn't look that impressive- until you crack it- and it's pretty nearly all kernel...

Don't forget!  This Saturday is Field Day.  Tons to see, although most hazels are not ripe.  And; be aware, starting this year, we're having TWO Field Days; 3rd Sat in August for hazels, and now last Sat in Sept, for chestnuts and hickory/pecans.  Come to both is you can!

Machine Harvest- This Week!

To our surprise and delight, we find that Badgersett Research Corp is going to be harvesting neohybrid hazelnuts by machine, the very first time this has been done anywhere - this week. Thursday, Sept. 15th, to be exact, if present plans stay on track. That will be the first day; we plan many more to follow. First harvest will take place on the Illinois hazel field we picked by hand last year; after several days there, the machine will come to Badgersett Farm #1, in Minnesota; picking in MN will be Sept. 20, 21, 22; press event to be set. (Yes, we did pick a few some years ago, from the Badgersett hazel field at Arbor Day Farm, but that was just a demo/trial, not a real harvest. This is- real harvest.)

The machine is an older model self-propelled BEI blueberry picking machine, purchased in Michigan, by hazel growers and close friends who wish to remain entirely anonymous. And while Badgersett does not own this machine, we nonetheless have exclusive use of it for 2011, and will have continuing use of it for several years. The owners wants to pick their own hazels with it next year; and BRC is providing engineering consulting and extensive field testing, to jointly begin the process of fully adapting this type of harvesting machine to the task of genuine hazelnut crop picking.

As part of the agreement, in the coming years Badgersett will be able to offer custom machine harvest to other growers. If you've been finding your increasing hazel crops are becoming just too much for hand picking- you might want to contact us and start making arrangements for us to bring the machine to your farm - very soon.

This is the back view, showing the mechanism. The "tunnel" is 6 feet high, which we think will be adequate for most of the hazels at the Illinois farm, and the younger hazels we'll be using it on in Minnesota.

The side/front view. The machine has hydraulic adjustments for the wheels to allow compensation for field slopes.

Everyone needs to realize; as we do; that having this machine does not mean "machine harvest" for bush hazels is here, fully developed and ready for prime time. It means we can now truly begin the process of adapting the machine to the plants; and adapting the plants to the machine.

For at least 20 years now, we've been noting in our hazelnut data whenever a particular hazel plant was "machine pickable"; meaning the nut clusters were not yet dropped, but would come off with a little moderate shaking - and - the bush was of a size and flexibility that would be likely to work.

Starting in 2012, we will be taking the next, and highly important, step in adapting plants to machines: we will be planting ourselves, and offering for sale; hazelnut tubelings from nuts that - were picked - by machine. It's an authentic evolutionary step; if you'd like your field to have a better chance of being machine harvestable; planting it with seedlings from nuts that were successfully picked by a machine is a huge step in the right direction.

Stay tuned here for more information. The harvest event at the Illinois farm is a closed event; open only by invitation to Badgersett stock holders, past volunteers, and the press; but the harvest events at Farm #1 in Minnesota will be open to the public. You're welcome to come - and maybe even lend a hand.

Badgersett hazel genetics- and the U of Nebraska-

It has come to our attention that at the recent hazel convention in La Crosse, a paper was presented stating that the "Arbor Day Lodge" hybrid hazel planting (100% of which is from Badgersett, though papers from the U of N routinely do not state that) - has only around 0.5% of the bushes that might have commercial potential.

Our response would be- "well, duh."

That's exactly what we would expect from those hazels.

But then- we know what that planting contains, genetically - in detail.

And neither the Arbor Day Foundation, nor the University of Nebraska does. They actually have no idea whatsoever, what those hazels ARE, genetically.

Why?

They never asked. How many of their researchers have ever visited Badgersett to investigate the source?

Zero.

Yes, we do see that as a problem.

In fact, we DID tell the Arbor Day Foundation what kind of hazels we were planting there. Not in detail, because they didn't have anyone on board who was assigned to keep track of such information, at the time. We always assumed that anyone interested in those hazels - would ASK - and we'd be happy to tell them.

But- Arbor Day forgot- and the U of N- has never- ever- bothered to ask.

Basically- if I were going to spend a lot of time studying anything- I'd darn sure want to learn as much about the origins of what I was studying. Wouldn't you?

spare 2 minutes...

I've got about 2 minutes "spare" here, and ran into these photos; which I thought I'd stick up here. (Click for bigger versions- recommended)

This is what our "to eat" hazels look like these days; this is actually what we ship. The upper photo is of a loaded sorting tray, just as it is when we're doing the final sort, removing any weeviled or spoiled nuts we can find.

There's been a substantial change in the overall size and quality; as we include more of the 3rd cycle plants- which are now producing, but not tested enough to use for seed. A lot of them have outstanding nuts.

As you know, if you're harvesting your own, the smaller ones frequently have extremely thin shells; paper thin- or thinner. We do discard heavy shelled bushes in the breeding process.

Badgersett will buy your nuts. This year.

It just dawned on me that this is really major news; and should go here as a full post; so more people see it.

"Eric the Red", in KC, commented on the last post; and I answered: 

"My thoughts on cooperative were on the lines of furthering breeding lines in a different locale for the very reason you mention - lack of a solid hazelnut market in the Midwest. I know that other organizations do this and have germplasm agreements and such. Is this something that Badgersett does or would consider?

FEBRUARY 23, 2010 12:51 PM 

Philip Rutter: Is cooperating etc. something BRC would consider? Absolutely- it's even something in our Business Plan. We've done a little- and now have a much better idea how to go about it.

So- yes. In fact, we're going farther than that; starting this year, Badgersett will buy your harvested nuts.

So- you now have a guaranteed market.

It's going to be wild pain figuring out how to price everything- obviously we'll have to vary prices with crop quality (weevils, blanks, etc..) - and distance-

But still. We'll buy what you have (ANYBODY out there with our hazels) - which will really help give us a pool of nuts to work with; on processing, and marketing.

A good part of the reason we can do this this year - we've had another substantial infusion of investment cash; gives us more latitude to work.

But don't count on getting rich at it! :-)

Big Fat Post #1

 We are suffering from information dysfunction here at Badgersett; some of it due to human nature, some of it quite possibly due to my past training (making my statements less comprehensible to normal people.)

  That's a huge part of the intended function of this blog; to start straightening information out.

  We've had two very tough questions posted already, and I'm going to tackle one here.  First of all, the initial discussion:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anonymous said... Hi,


I've planted Badgersett and others' hazels for years. I've found that the Badgersett hazels produce nice nuts, but generally don't thrive as well.  I've also found that despite my best efforts the deer keep the hazels severely pruned. My question: About eight years ago I purchased chestnuts from you. They all struggled for a year or two and then died. I've heard since that at least three feet of matting is needed around chestnuts if they are going be become established. Is this true? Thanks.

Tom in Dubuque Co.

FEBRUARY 10, 2010 12:50 AM  Philip Rutter said: Tom in Dubuque - we appreciate the straight talk.I'm going to answer your query here as a new post, in detail, with photos But first, I'd appreciate it if you would answer, here, this question: Have you attended our Short Course?  My guess would be, no.

FEBRUARY 10, 2010 12:26 PM       Anonymous said... Hi, No, I haven't been able to attend a short course. I work overseas and am only back in Iowa for a month or so every summer. Thus I put the bushes in the ground, do everything I can to help, and then leave them to their own devices. Not the ideal situation, I admit.

 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


  Ok, bit by bit:  "I've planted Badgersett and others' hazels for years. I've found that the Badgersett hazels produce nice nuts, but generally don't thrive as well. "


  Glad to know you like the nuts ok.  Now, about "thrive".
  Something everybody needs to keep in mind is the history of hazelnuts in the Upper Midwest.  If you can, find a copy of "Growing Nuts in the North: A Personal Story of the Author's Experience of 33 Years with Nut Culture in Minnesota and Wisconsin by Carl Weschcke".   To my astonishment, when I googled, it's not hard to come by.

  Flatly; if you are thinking about growing nuts seriously in the Upper Midwest; read this book first.  For one thing, the foundation stock for our Badgersett hazels came from the survivors of Carl Weschcke's plantings.  We've updated their genetics considerably, but if you just look at the plants side by side, it's hard to tell the difference.

  Weschcke's experience with hazels was not good, actually.  Something missing in his book is the "and then what happened!?" part.  Something DID happen.  He decided to go into business, and make and sell hazel butter.  He wound up buying hazels from Oregon to meet his obligations, and the project went broke.  He really lost hope for hazels in this region; not reflected in the book.  (How do I know?  Extensive/intensive personal communication with many of his friends from the Northern Nut Growers Association, of which I am a Past President.)

  A huge factor in that failure was a big epidemic of "Eastern Filbert Blight (EFB)" that moved into his hybrids and reached epidemic proportions shortly after he wrote the book.  Experts from Oregon came and looked at them, and told him there was really no hope- they were all going to be seriously susceptible to the disease. 

  They were wrong.  And this may be the place to point out that I have a track record of saying "the academics are wrong" about a forest disease- and being proven correct.  I was the founding president of TACF.  At the time, chestnut blight was "known", after 50 years of extensive research, to have no solution; but a mere 25 years later, we are planting out the first trees which may bring the species back; and the science behind it is recognized as entirely sound.

  Ok, hang in there Tom!  :-)  I know this may sound off the track; but it's really not.  Just to keep you reading, and your appetite whetted: this is a photo of plain Badgersett hazels, 18 months old.

  When I decided to try to carry on Weschcke's 35 years of work, around 1982, the state of knowledge about growing Corylus for nut production in the Upper Midwest was this:

  European hazel will not grow reliably here.  A) It's not cold hardy enough for test winters, and B) it's lethally susceptible to EFB.

  American hazel will not make a useful crop.  A) All of them eventually are attacked by EFB and knocked back, and B) crops are small and erratic, with small nuts (i.e. "wild")

  That's what "everybody knew", and they had decades of experience to back it all up.  All of those statements, however, turn out to be only partly true; which leaves a lot of room for finding individual plants that do perform.

  Without getting into ALL the details of the initial generation of Badgersett hazels, you can see that the barriers were formidable.  My training in evolution, though, had led me to be quite aware of the fact that populations of everything on Earth periodically must, and do, go through "bottlenecks" - some change in their living situation which means 90% of existing organisms now are inadequate; hence only 10% will survive to pass through the bottleneck, and launch the renewed population on the other side.

  What was needed for hazels was a strict and harsh bottleneck, artificially imposed in this case.  That's what I set out to do; not cold hardy?  die.  Not resistant to disease?  die.  

  Those, actually, were the ONLY two criteria for passing through Generation 1 here.  For scientific reasons; if you do the math on finding individuals in a random population that meet 1 test, and the number that will meet 2; and the number that will meet 3- it turns out 3 is far too high a goal to set.  

  I would strongly recommend that you read this paper, from 1988, which outlines our goals.  One bit: 

The major long range goal is to pursue the domestication and development of woody perennial plants for agricultural purposes. It is not our intention to be satisfied just with finding new cultivars better than those currently available, for purposes of commercial production of luxury crops such as pecans and walnuts. We wish to begin to realize the potential of such species to become producers of staples. In order for that to happen, however, we feel that a basic change in philosophy is necessary, moving away from the searching of natural forests for interesting trees, and turning to intensive breeding with the specific intent of altering wild trees, which basically have no reason to produce large, regular crops for human use, into genuinely domesticated plants.

  That's really very different from "gosh, I'd like to find some hazel bushes that would make good nuts."  It's a commitment to creating an entire crop system- which is a very complex undertaking.

---------------------------------------------------

  Ok!  Finally!  Here's why your Badgersett hazels don't "thrive" as well as others!  :-)

  In the desire to create a working crop system, I inadvertently added a 3rd criterion to the 2 I was thinking about, EFB resistance and cold hardiness; that was "survival, in adversity".

  Real farmers don't have a lot of time to baby their plants.  Planting huge fields of corn works because it's done with great precision, in a very small window of opportunity.  Done exactly right, it works.

  Farmer's record with growing trees is typically not good; they'll plant 100 black walnuts, with good intentions to "get back in there and control the weeds and deer...  when I can..."  which means the deer and weed control mostly do not happen.

  Plants coming out of University research stations have an even worse record than farmers.  The "three year grant cycle" means your work won't get funding if you don't have results in 3 years- which means they use every tool at their disposal to speed up the plants' growth in the University test plantings.  Which means- when they give those to the farmer- it's a dead loss.

  I'm not making this up.  It's well known and admitted that the entire first generation of "hybrid poplars!", supposed to be "wonder" plants, the result of advanced scientific techniques; were simply not VIABLE in the real world.  They would die.

  I didn't want to do that.  So we put all our initial 2 generations of plantings through 3-5 years of intentional, total, neglect.  2 years of good weed control and some fertilizer for establishment; then oo weed control; no fertilizer; for years.  If they weren't there 3-5 years later- good.  Plenty survived.

  What we now know, however, is that in selecting plants that survive stress, we inadvertently selected for plants that will shift growing programs- and shift into survival mode, if they are, or have been stressed.  And transplanting is stressful, no getting around it.  

  IF THE STRESS IS HIGH ENOUGH, BADGERSETT HAZELS WILL "SHUT DOWN"- often until next year.  What that means is, instead of risking resources on making new leaves and shoots, the plants will put virtually all their time and energy into making roots.

  In many cases, on poor soils, they may wind up making roots- for years.

  Which can be very discouraging.  But- if you planted your tomatoes on broken bricks, would you expect a good tomato crop?  

  At this point, 35 years in from my own beginning, my opinion is that Badgersett hybrid hazels will often take 10-15 years to build a "mature" root system.  The root system is immense- basically a hemisphere at least 3 meters in diameter full of roots.  It takes a lot of NPK to build it.

  
Folks have, now, grown our hazels this rapidly in the field.  This is Norm Erickson, looking at some of his 2.5 year old hazels (with Nancy.)  As you can see- he's doing extensive cultivation (which is a kind of fertilization you know- it makes resources available) and multiple fertilizations.  Plus, his hazels at this point have their deep roots well into the local aquifer.  The water table is about 4-5 feet down, and that water is jam packed full of agricultural nitrogen; all you can eat.


  So.  If your Badgersett hazel plants are struggling for any resource- water, NPK, sunlight - when they are very young, they may grow very slowly.  If you treat them like an agricultural crop- weeding, water, and food- they can and do grow just as fast as anyone else's.


  One other thing- Tom, do you have active EFB growing in your hazels there in Des Moines?  I would guess likely not, or just a little.


  EFB is a very specialized fungus; it must have hazelnut to grow in.  Consequently, in many places, it could now be considered an endangered organism.  It can be very rare.  


  I have many many stories to tell of people "back east" who had some European hazels growing "for 40 years!"  in their backyards- only to have them suddenly collapse and die, completely.


  That is the eventual fate of almost all hazels- if they have not been through 10 years of REAL WORLD screening for resistance to EFB.  And, so far as I know, we're the only ones who do that.  We don't sell seedlings from plants less than 10 years old.


-------------------------------------------------------------------


  OK!!  I'm gonna stop.  You're probably as tired out as I am.  More soon.


  The intention, here, is to get all these replies linked up in a really functional FAQ- so folks can browse through the answers at their own speed.  Hang in there.  Didn't get all Tom's points addressed; but we will.

-------------------------------

ps, for reasons not clear to me, my control of fonts and text sizes here sucks- I'll work on fixing that and getting all this readable.