I have two hazelnut (filbert) trees. They came with the property. My neighbor has two more that look to be a different variety. When the shells turn brown and drop, I open them and find the inside is empty. No nuts at all. If I pick them while still green, there is full soft meat inside. Therefore I assume it is getting pollinated. But when it ripens the nut seems to disappear. What is the problem?
I never wait for the nuts to drop to harvest- if I do, the only thing on the ground are blanks- no nut, empty shell. The culprit are our local Stellar's Jays. As soon as they start hanging around the nut trees, I check for ripeness (if you can turn the nut inside the husk), and pick everything that's ripe. I then spread the green nuts in our sunroom to cure.
If the blue jays get at the nuts, will not the shells be cracked? The empty shells are entirely whole with no sign of breaking.
The jays are intelligent enough to distinguish between the full and empty nuts. They fly away with the former and store them to eat later, elsewhere (so you won't find the cracked shells), and leave the empties behind for you to find.
Blue-and-black one is Stellar's jay, as already stated. Blue jay is an eastern North American species, blue-and-white like the scrub jay but crested. Trees will have to be netted if you are losing most of nuts to them. We have a purpleleaf filbert in Edmonds. Jays come for the nuts well before they are firm.
I misspoke when I said blue jay. Old habit from Virginia! It is hard to believe that they will take away all the good ones. I collected a load of them from the ground. Every single one was whole and empty. Don't they miss some?!
Sometime use parthenocarpy as a keyword and search these forums. Your answer for why you see so many blanks has already been covered. Even a female Filbert can produce a nut without pollen from a male flower. Filberts are considered to be hermaphroditic and can change sexes on us as my male Filbert changed to a female years ago. My old female will produce snouts as we call them (catkins) and can pollinize itself and what was my original male Filbert. I find the Blue Jay stuff interesting as it is not the Blue Jays that raid my Pistachios so much it is the Crows that make a bee-line right for the nuts. Even still thanks to parthenocarpy we will have lots of blanks in the Pistachios, just like there is in the Filberts but with the Pistachios even the whole, full kernel nuts will fall to the ground. The Crows snag the nuts off the ground. The Blue Jays have not figured out the Filberts yet and mine that fall to the ground are not blanks. Last years crop had no blanks at all and yes I do find that surprising. In Oregon, Filberts are harvested just like we do for the Pistachios in that we sweep the fallen nuts, gather them up and then separate out the blanks from the full kernel or whole nuts. Next year look to see if you see any catkins on these Filberts in the very early Spring (I had catkins showing here on my Filbert by the first week of January). If you do not see any catkins at all then you will not have any Filberts with nuts in the shell. Jim
I became interested in birds as a kid here in the Seattle area, noticed the Stellar's jay often being called "blue jay" by others.
Sometimes we get too technical for our own good. Say Blue Jay and everyone has an idea what the bird looks like. I know what you mean about Stellar jays and I am guilty of calling them and referencing them as being Blue Jays also. I have raised a breed of Pigeon called Modena for 42 years. My specialty are Gold Schietti and Bronze Gazzi but I have not shown them in years. Birds are in my blood it seems.. Jim
PS - spellcheck for anyone wanting to do a websearch . . . Steller's Jay Named after Georg Wilhelm Steller, 1709-1746, German explorer who travelled across Siberia to Alaska
Steller's Eider Steller's Sea Eagle (the World's largest eagle) Steller's Sea Lion Steller's Sea Cow (now extinct; related to Manatees) and an assortment of fish, molluscs, etc.
Various plants from the same region, such as Artemisia stelleriana probably commemorate same Steller. UBC Plant Introductions scheme has put out a form of that one.
The Steller Jays get all my fiberts too, and they never make a mistake about which ones are blanks. The filberts haven't seemed to be ripe enough to pick before the Jays get them but I will try Terry's idea. I tried netting but they work their way into any hole to get to them. They were here first and they are beautiful birds so I can't get too mad at them.
Would have had thousands of years to practice on native Corylus cornuta californica before C. avellana was introduced.
When I first moved to Salt Spring, I lived on a nut farm (would also be a good description of the people who lived there!). Anyway,they had huge fishing nets that they would put over the crop to stop the birds. Then they used to pick all the Hazelnuts (filberts) off the tree, then put them onto big trays which would hang around a heated room to dry. Seemed like a labour intensive process. Carol Ja
Just east of the south end of Vancouver Island, at 48° 50' N 123° 30' W Topozone: http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?z=10&n=5409285&e=462733&s=1000&size=l&u=7&datum=nad83&layer=DRG250
We're the island that is in the way of the Vancouver Island ferry crossing. Okay, I'll admit that although I have heard of Sequim, I have no idea of its location. Carol Ja
They're only 80-90km apart, with a clear channel between them - you should be able to see the one from the other on a clear day no problem. Look north-north-west from Sequim, or south-south-east from Saltspring.
Oh yeah, okay I know which one you mean, I can see the ships go by down that way. If I'm standing on Mount Tuam, I can see as far as Rainier, has to be the right weather though. Carol Ja
