Hazelnut Pollination?

General Fruit Growing
21

So I’m confused about Hazelnut pollination

As far as I can tell there are 3 things to consider

Pollination time - early, mid, and late. I’m not sure if this refers to when the pollen is released from the male catkins or when the female flowers become receptive

S-Alleles in the pollen and in the female flowers - looks like most cultivars express 2 S-alleles, one female and one male. for instance Somerset’ has S-alleles 3 and 10 with S3 expressed in the pollen. so does that mean it will pollinate other hazelnuts that don’t have S3 in their female flowers, and will be pollinated by any hazelnut with pollen that isn’t S10? is that right?

If accurate, I notice that not all cultivars list which of the 2 alleles is expressed in the pollen specifically. is there a way/place to look this up?

22

Pollination period refers to catkin pollen release as the female flowers are durable. Your deduction on S3 pollination is correct. There should be accompanying data along with these regarding alleles and dominance in the literature. Rutgers should have their updated pdf online

2 Likes
23

rutgers does, but I couldn’t find the later pollen shed canadian varieties on the Grimo website. they list 2 S-alleles but not which is one is expressed in the pollen. I eventually stumbled on this Rutgers publication (E638) which indicates Slate might be a good pollination partner with The Beast and Somerset. I believe it is also more compact in size, which would work well for me.

1 Like