Re-Transplanting 3 years old Hazelnut tree

Question

I am in a dilemma. I bought 10.000 hazelnuts plants for cultivation.

The story is that I didn't do all the soil preparations in advance this year. The reason for that is that someone (a person I know that has hazelnut trees) advised me to better prepare the irrigation part first, thus I was saving money for that before final transplanting.

In the meanwhile, that means I would have to transplant my 2 years old plants from the nursery into land (temporarily), and then from the previous place into final destination (meaning 2 transplants in 2 years). This "advisor" told me that he has already done that in the past with good results, so I believed him.

Now that I'm close to receiving the plants, I'm told by other people that I shouldn't re-transplant because that will further damage the plant, and that I would loose most of them or weaken the plants, postponing future production. Thus my dilemma is

1. transplant into final destination now (which means I have a risk of failing in future irrigation) or
2. transplant two times (with more risk to the plant, but affording drip irrigation next year, thus less risk for me in terms of watering plants).

In summary. Is it possible to re-transplant the tree a year after its first transplantation? I've been told that hazelnut trees are pretty vigorous, and that can withstand a lot more than other trees.

Answer 1

I know nothing about growing hazlenuts. It seems likely that if they are already 2 year old then transplanting them again would probably cause some damage. If they were in pots, that would contain the roots and it wouldn't be so bad. But planting in the ground would make the roots spread. And you could damage them when digging them up.

There is no reason why it wouldn't work, it would just require a lot of care. When I google, it appears that they are 8 to 10 inches tall when transplanting is done. If they are already this height, then your proposal is risky.

When I was retransplanting pines in that quantity (after heeling them in) they were dirt cheap and I didn't care if half of them died. I had about 80% success rate. You need to do a cost benefit analysis.