What is in this newsletter?
· Free trees during the last week of our spring sale
· Tissue Culture expansion with a new enlarged laboratory.
· Cultivar spotlight: Somerset
· NYTCA Cooperative efforts continue despite funding cuts
· Planting bare root trees in the spring.
This newsletter highlights the efforts to bring permaculture to every faucet of agriculture. The more permaculture is part of our agriculture, the better off we all will be.
· Free trees during the last week of our spring sale
For every 10 trees purchased we will give you two free trees for one week only. Hurry, as this is our last week of our spring sale. Prior sales are not included and we cannot add any further discounts. This spring we didn’t harvest as many NITKA layers as we would like and will not be adding more for sale until fall. We do have some grafted Photon cultivars available in limited quantities. See our web site for availability: WELCOME TO Z’S NUTTY RIDGE NURSERY - Your Native Nut Tree Store – Z's Nutty Ridge LLC
· Tissue Culture expansion with a new enlarged laboratory
As we have reported before, nut cultivars need a way to increase production of clonal stock and tissue culture is the main way that it is done. To this end we have expanded our tissue culture capabilities. Using what we have learned in the last few years from a room in our house, we decided to build out a lab that will allow us to expand production for the needs of the Northeast. It takes a lot of effort to get a stable process and we are working hard to bring in more cultivars into production. We are licensed to produce Rutgers releases, The Beast from the Hybrid Hazelnut Consortium and of course our own cultivars that we have developed.
Each cube has 9 to 15 ‘shoots’ (i.e. little trees) in it. We have enough racks and LED lights for over 5000 cubes. It takes 4 to 5 weeks to grow the shoots to the height you see and we can do it year around. We are working to ramp production. If you think you have a cold hardy disease resistant, exceptionally productive hazelnut seedling with outstanding nuts please let us know.
· Cultivar spotlight: Somerset hazelnut Cultivar
This tree is crazy productive as it has been reported to produce up to 53 pounds of nuts per tree. A tree this productive requires proper feeding. Somerset Patent No. PP32,494 under the auspices of Dr. Molnar at Rutgers University. Somerset is a high yielding tree with small to medium size, round kernels with moderately good blanching. Somerset has thin shells and can produce good crops even on young trees. Somerset is a compact tree with a slightly spreading growth habit that reaches up to 15 feet tall at 15 years.
Somerset has dark green leaves that are slightly crinkled making it distinguishable from the other cultivars. Somerset nuts have an attractive dark brown shell and a majority (>85%) drop free from the husk and fall cleanly at maturity. ‘Somerset’ nuts typically fall in the second half of September in New Jersey along with the cultivar 'Raritan'.
Regarding pollination, 'Somerset' has S-alleles 3 and 10 and it blooms in early to mid-season in New Jersey. Somerset is good for USDA Zones 6b and warmer. The nut is good size with 1.1 grams and an excellent 55% kernel.
· NYTCA Cooperative efforts will continue despite funding cuts
Climate Smart Commodities funding was cut at the Federal level which means we do not have the funding to continue at our current location and are working to find a way to continue with our nut processing center. NYTCA has most all, if not all the equipment needed to size, crack, separate, roast, weight and bag nuts, flour and oils. Watch for our latest posts at: Home | New York Tree Crops Alliance If you have any thoughts or ideas we appreciate the input.
· Planting bare root trees in the spring.
Planting trees are a way of celebrating spring. Getting trees off to a good start will help them grow and thrive. We have distilled down how to plant bare root trees and have added a page to our website dedicated to assisting you. Getting bare root trees in their forever home is important. Luckily you don’t have to worry about the weather as they are generally dormant and won’t care. Our planting page is at: Planting trees - What you need to know. – Z's Nutty Ridge LLC (znutty.com)
Plant until you can’t.
From the team at Z’s Nutty Ridge LLC