hazel nuts

[smojo]

Walking around my local woods I see loads of hazel growing but I've never seen any hazel nuts on them. Right now they are covered in catkins so why don't they produce?

[oldclaypaws]

Answer;

[TerryH]

That's something I'd like to know as well. We have a few hazel bushes but as they are mostly under cover of larger trees I guess they don't get to be pollinated easily.. never seen catkins on them either. Guess I need to give them some light/space...
Near my home, there are a few acres of nothing but hazel and that was all coppiced a few years ago and has now grown back significantly. I read that late autumn is the time to go and shake the hazel (that's not a euphemism!) to get nuts to fall to ground. So went over there in late October but didn't see a single nut growing.

[Dexter's Shed]

last year our hazel had lots of green hazelnuts on them, trouble is thats how the squirrels like them, the following weekend, ALL GONE

[TerryH]

Say yer prayers varmint!

[Dexter's Shed]

[Meadowcopse]

Hazels can have female and male flowers at slightly different times, which is less than ideal. They are monoecious with single-sex wind-pollinated catkins. Male catkins are pale yellow and 5–12 cm long, while female catkins are very small and largely concealed in the buds with only the bright red 1–3 mm long styles visible.

With respect to squirrels, there is a theory that removing a strong dominant male from a reasonable sized territory, can result in an influx of a number of more juvenile males. There are however a number of enchanting recipes for grey squirrels...

[SitkaSpruce]

Yup it's the grey squirrels I'm afraid, there're happy to eat them green so they never get to ripen. I can remember eating them green in the Lakes but as that's largely a red territory you're more likely to get them there. The catkins are all out here making hazel easy to ID. My wood is in the buffer zone trying to stop grey squirrels getting into the red areas. You can get squirrel from some butchers here- it's actually surprisingly difficult to get as it sells out quickly and quite expensive but it is nice and feels good to eat the enemy. We're doing our best to eat them out of the area!
There's no hazel in my wood, so we are currently planting a few and hopefully will build up a bit of a coppice.

[smojo]

I figured squirrels would like them but not that they would clear them out! Greedy buggers. It's only recently, since getting serious about woodlands, that I have been consciously trying to identify different tree species. Only now that the catkins are out, do I realise they are incredibly abundant in our local woods yet I have never seen one single nut. I figured there must possibly be a female/male thing going on but where are all the females when you need one! Actually I'm allergic to hazel nuts anyway, they make my whole mouth and throat itch like mad. I also get a seasonal hay fever around April/May which I believe is caused by birch pollen but I'm going off topic now.