sutton023

Executive Summary: Plants: Standard tubelings still available for all categories ( Hazel , Chestnut and Hickory-Pecan ) except MP-BFL-Haz. We expect most orders taken now to ship around mid-June, some categories still available earlier. Bare-root dormant tubelings SOLD OUT for 2013. Nuts : A few hazels and hickories still available from the 2012 harvest. Chestnuts from 2012 sold out. Details to come, but right now we're preparing for the Short Course that starts tomorrow!

In spite of the snow outside the greenhouse, the nuts are starting to wake up from their winter dormancy. I'm sharing a close-up profile of a chestnut germling below. We've planted over 4000 hazelnuts and 900 chestnuts to date.  We wait until they have germinated so that all seeds in a flat are nearly the same developmentally.  By doing so we can ensure watering and other treatments can be provided at near optimal timing for the entire population of plants in a flat. We use subirrigation via flood-able tables to ensure even water availability to the tublings.  If you are familiar with the leaf size of hazelnuts (or chestnuts) you can readily see how water from an overhead source could be deflected from reaching the surface (and interior) of individual tubes (white containers above and below).  In order to ensure good capillary action we presoak the flats after planting.  Included in this presoak is a combination of beneficial soil organisms in a produc...

A long time in the making, we are now ready to open our Amazing Hazel Maze for the month of October. The season has been good enough for our chestnuts that we have some available for pick-your-own for the first time as well- definitely exciting to pick that food out of the leaves on the ground! Below is the note we just sent out to our email list. For directions, check the "About Badgersett" page on the main web site We hope to see you here, and we'll post more details here as we can. This Sunday October 7, and the remaining Saturdays and Sundays in October, from 1PM-5PM. Hello folks, This is a quick note going out to our "nearby" friends from us here at Badgersett– this Sunday we will be opening our hazel maze for the first time, and we'll have pick-your-own chestnuts available for the first time ever as well!  The maze will be open for the rest of the weekends in October, but chestnut harvest is tapering off and they are likely to be harder to get, and ma...

We've machine picked the hazels here in Minnesota for the second time; one week after the first picking, and the results were again- better than anticipated. Many bushes which refused to be picked the first time, were very successfully machine picked on the second pass. Right at the moment, though, our next emergency has arrived. We work with two other crops here, as not too many folks realize; chestnuts and hickory hybrids are also quite important to us. Because of the rather strange growing season, we've been unsure until quite recently whether we would get any chestnut crop this year or not. They flowered extremely late, in mid July, and developed slowly, as from extreme heat we shifted to cool drought. All these nut crops have the ability to alter their ripening behavior, from year to year. This year, the chestnuts have decided to all ripen at once; early and late varieties; and in a hurry; many of the nuts now dropping are not fully colored. Then, today- we...

When we started growing and breeding chestnuts here in SE Minnesota, there was no chestnut blight ( Endothia parasitica at first, then Cryphonectria parasitica ; though my own preferred name is Cryphodothia pseudoparasitica* ... long conversation...) known, for at least 50 miles, perhaps 100. It had been identified in Ames, Iowa, and seen once briefly around Zumbrota, Minnesota; but it certainly was not here. For the first 20 years, as our chestnut plantings expanded, we never saw it. When we were ready to test our chestnut genetics against the blight, we sent seed both to Auburn University in Alabama, and to the Hubei Academy of Agricultural Science in China. Tests in both places were overseen by Dr. Hongwen Huang; I will put his reports here, originally published in our Root & Branch #4: Date: Fri, 05 Apr 96 11:18:53 EST From: hongwen huang Subject: RE: report of blight resistance of your breeding lines in Alabama Dear Phil: In response to your request for the results of m...

Hello folks, It's late, I know! We did just get most of our outstanding nut orders shipped today, and although we expect to sell out by Christmas we do have a few left that you can snatch up, if you haven't already. We thought we should let you know: DATES: If you make your e-mail order by 5 PM Monday, and you made it early enough that there are still nuts left, we should be able to get it shipped on Tuesday for Christmas delivery via our standard nut shipping (that is, at least, according to USPS). Barring, of course, further blizzards. What we've got available: FIRST TIME: BADGERSETT HYBRID HICKORIES! These look mostly like shagbark or shellbark hickories, but the shells are thin enough to crack with a hand cracker! Most nuts taste like premium pecan, some will have a good real hickory taste, and some will even taste like black walnut. Limited supply, and in 1-pound bags only. NOTE: though they'll crack with a hand cracker, you'll want a nut pick. We still have...

We're pretty proud of the fact that we've actually invented a new way - or two new ways - to peel chestnuts. Here's the YouTube video; this is the long version, for Method 1. We had to split the video into two pieces for You Tube, so Method 2 is separate. For those in a hurry; there's The Short Version , which has both methods and much less commentary. (Plus, I don't sing, in The Short Version, so you can escape that hazard if you wish...) Another thing we're proud of, is that a few years ago our chestnuts were featured in a substantial article by Corby Kummer, Senior Food Editor of The Atlantic Monthly. He liked them . Quite a lot. Corby cooked most of his in the microwave; cutting them in half (at our suggestion). If you use a microwave; be sure to use Method 1, not Method 2- the microwave heats them so fast that sometimes #2 is just not enough area to let steam out, and you may have an explosion even though they're pierced.