Description
If you are planting hazelnuts for the nuts themselves, Jefferson is easy to understand: the nuts are big, the tree is productive, and it carries strong resistance to the disease that made many older hazelnut varieties a liability.
The nuts average around 3.7 grams and have a good kernel-to-shell ratio. Most fall free of the husk at maturity, which turns harvest into gathering nuts from beneath the tree rather than peeling every one out by hand.
Overview
- Large-nut hazelnut selected for home and orchard production.
- Highly resistant to eastern filbert blight.
- Moderately vigorous with an upright-spreading habit.
- Mid-October harvest in the Willamette Valley.
- Most mature nuts drop free of the husk.
- Requires a compatible pollinizer.
The one thing you must get right is pollination. Jefferson will not set a proper crop alone, and planting two Jefferson trees does not solve it. Use a compatible variety such as Eta, Theta, Felix or York nearby. If you have room for more than one pollinizer, varieties that shed pollen at different points through Jefferson’s long receptive period give the best coverage.
Plant it in deep, well-drained ground and keep it out of places that stay wet through summer. Hazelnuts make a substantial root system and do poorly where a hardpan or high water table keeps those roots shallow.
Jefferson does not need a paragraph full of trial percentages to make its case. It is simply a good large-nut hazelnut with strong blight resistance. Give it the right pollinizer and the right soil, and the rest is straightforward.
Planting & Care
At a Glance
• Buy a pollinizer with it: Eta, Theta, Felix or York.
• Two Jeffersons will not pollinate each other, whatever the spacing.
• Deep, well-drained soil. Hazelnuts will not take wet feet in summer.
• Keep it off low ground, late spring frosts burn the buds and new shoots.
• Nuts drop free of the husk in mid-October, so harvest is sweeping up.
Planting & Care: Jefferson Hazelnut
Plant a pollinizer alongside it or you will get no nuts. Jefferson cannot set a crop with its own pollen, and a second Jefferson is no help at all, because the two are the same plant. Eta, Theta, Felix and York all work. If you have room for two partners, use two: York sheds early in Jefferson’s receptive period, Felix in the middle, Eta mid to late, Theta late, so a pair covers the whole window where one may only catch part of it.
Timing is the reason that matters. Hazelnuts pollinate in the depth of winter, peaking in January and February, with the female flowers receptive from as early as late November through to the start of March. Pollen travels on the wind, so plant partners within easy reach of the prevailing breeze rather than at the far end of the garden.
Get the soil right first, because it caps everything later. Jefferson wants deep, medium-textured, well-drained ground and will not tolerate wet soil through the growing season. Most of the roots sit in the top 2 ft but they push down 6 to 10 ft where they can, so a hardpan or a high water table will stall the tree at eight to ten years old, just as it should be coming into its stride. Avoid shallow, heavy or very light soils.
Air drainage counts too. Keep it out of low-lying pockets where cold air settles, because a late frost in April damages the cluster buds and the soft new shoots and takes that year’s crop with it.
It is strongly resistant to eastern filbert blight, which is the reason it was introduced and makes it a sound choice where that disease is around. The tree is moderately vigorous, upright and spreading, and stays a good deal smaller than the old orchard standards, so occasional pruning keeps it in hand. The nuts are large, around 3.7 g at 45 percent kernel, ripening in mid-October, and about four in five fall clear of the husk, so gathering is mostly sweeping rather than picking.
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