Gardener Explains Growing Filberts or Hazel Trees

 

In the past few years, Lee Reich, a well-known gardener, has planted several sorts of nuts, including Hazelnuts. Hazelnuts come from the hazel tree. They are often eaten and ground into a mixture that can be spread.

Hazelnuts are also known as filbert nuts, especially from the European sort. After planting the young trees, Reich found they produced their first nuts within three years. Sadly, the nuts could not be eaten. They were small and did not taste good. He did find the catkins, the male flowers, to be beautiful in the winter. And each autumn, the trees' leaves turned to bright colors.

A few years after planting those trees, he planted more hazels. The newly planted trees were from a sort that was made to produce large flavorful nuts. They come from the European hazel trees. They are found around the Mediterranean¹ area of Europe or in the northwest of North America. They produce the nuts that are found in supermarkets.

Enter a disease

A disease called filbert blight² is what has historically kept people from growing filberts in the eastern United States. Blight is a name for any plant disease.

Filbert blight is native to North America and had little effect on hazel trees native to North America. However, it is very dangerous to the European ones.

The blight causes a collapse³ and death of the branches. The disease can go years without being seen due to its long lifetime. It can be ten years before a tree is killed.

Easy workaround for disease

Cutting off infected branches, or pruning⁴, and spraying chemicals are two ways to deal with blight.

The disease found its way to commercially grown filbert trees in northwestern North America. This created the need to find sorts of hazels that are resistant⁵.

Two trees were identified early on: Hall's Giant and Willamette. Now, there are many that are resistant. Lee Reich plans to plant these resistant trees in his garden.

He keeps the young trees healthy by covering the ground with mulch and, if needed, providing nutrients⁶. He removes some leaves and branches to start new growth and to stop diseases. This also permits all the branches to have light and air. He found these efforts create 15 to 25 centimeters of new growth. This growth permits continuously good nut production.

Lee Reich regularly writes about gardening for The Associated Press. He has also written several books, including "Growing Figs⁷ in Cold Climates" and "The Pruning Book."

Words in This Story

garden – n. an area of ground where plants (such as flowers or vegetables) are grown

nut – n. a small dry fruit with a hard shell that grows on trees, bushes, etc.

bump⁸ – n. a small raised area on a surface

spray – v. to put a stream of small drops of liquid on (someone or something)

mulch – n. a material (such as straw, leaves, or small pieces of wood) that is spread over the ground in a garden to protect the plants or help them grow and to stop weeds from growing

1 Mediterranean   

adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的

参考例句：

• The houses are Mediterranean in character.这些房子都属地中海风格。
• Gibraltar is the key to the Mediterranean.直布罗陀是地中海的要冲。

2 blight   

n.枯萎病；造成破坏的因素；vt.破坏，摧残

参考例句：

• The apple crop was wiped out by blight.枯萎病使苹果全无收成。
• There is a blight on all his efforts.他的一切努力都遭到挫折。

3 collapse   

vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做了一次彻底的调查分析。

4 pruning   

n.修枝，剪枝，修剪v.修剪（树木等）( prune的现在分词 )；精简某事物，除去某事物多余的部分

参考例句：

• In writing an essay one must do a lot of pruning. 写文章要下一番剪裁的工夫。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• A sapling needs pruning, a child discipline. 小树要砍，小孩要管。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

5 resistant   

adj.(to)抵抗的，有抵抗力的

参考例句：

• Many pests are resistant to the insecticide.许多害虫对这种杀虫剂有抵抗力。
• They imposed their government by force on the resistant population.他们以武力把自己的统治强加在持反抗态度的人民头上。

6 nutrients   

n.（食品或化学品）营养物，营养品( nutrient的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• a lack of essential nutrients 基本营养的缺乏
• Nutrients are absorbed into the bloodstream. 营养素被吸收进血液。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 figs   

figures 数字，图形，外形

参考例句：

• The effect of ring dyeing is shown in Figs 10 and 11. 环形染色的影响如图10和图11所示。
• The results in Figs. 4 and 5 show the excellent agreement between simulation and experiment. 图4和图5的结果都表明模拟和实验是相当吻合的。

8 bump   

v.（against,into）碰，颠簸；n.碰撞，隆起物

参考例句：

• I heard a bump in the next room.我听到隔壁房间传来“砰”的一声。
• He got a bad bump on his forehead.他碰得前额隆起一个大包。