How to plant chestnuts - video

[castanea]

How to plant the nuts (not how to plant the trees). This is a very good video by one of the leading chestnut researchers in the US:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-O8IRqOYrP8

[darwinslair]

I remember chestnuts (american) from when I was a kid. wonder what you have to do to get your hands on a few nuts.

Tom

[mnjrutherford]

Kinda depends on where you live. I'm working on it myself. We found a tree a few miles from us. They are rare here, but not in other places. The nuts from the tree we found were not viable because they had not been .... oh what IS the word... innoculated? no... inseminated? no... that isn't it either... anyway, you couldn't grow a tree from them.

I have found a potential source and wrote offering to trade a few seeds for a pair of homemade socks. He may not have taken me seriously though. He hasn't responded in any case.

[castanea]

Jan 23, 2010 6:44:41 GMT -5 darwinslair said:

I remember chestnuts (american) from when I was a kid. wonder what you have to do to get your hands on a few nuts.

Tom

Pure American trees are hard to find, but every year there are people selling American nuts or trees somewhere. People on ebay sell American nuts every year, but some of them are not really American nuts.

Schumacher seed usually has American seed every year and they do now. Theirs are probably from an isolated stand of pure American trees that were planted in Wisconsin in the late 1800s. The cost is $8.60 for a quarter lb, which should be at least 10 seed and could be as many as 20 seed.

www.treeshrubseeds.com/

Here are other sources for chestnut trees and seed, but these people will only have pure American seeds or seedlings if it is specifically mentioned. If it's not specifically mentioned, they probably don't have Americans:

www.acf.org/pdfs/resources/SeedlingSourceList.pdf

Before you plant chestnuts you might ask yourself what your goal is. If you want good large crops of decent size nuts, Americans are not the answer. Their nuts are tiny and it will be many years before they produce a decent crop. If you just want an American for the historical aspects, I understand, but realize that if you live in the east it will probably get blight sooner or later. If it doesn't get blight it will eventually be a huge tree, faster growing than anything you've seen before in the east. And you need two if you want nuts.

[mnjrutherford]

Castanea, aren't all American's a little nuts? ;D (Sorry, couldn't help myself with that one.)

I did want to add that our purpose in looking to acquire both the American and the chinquapin (preferably Allegheny) are historical and in the case of the American, the fast growing trees. We are aware of the difficulty of harvesting, particularly the chinquapins, however, there are schools that feel that the flavor of the nuts make it a worthy effort. (Probably cooking schools )

[ottawagardener]

Talking about Chestnuts, maybe someone can answer me this (as I feel like chatting to you guys instead of googling), but what are the varieties that they grow in Europe versus the Chinese kind. The European are quite large and similar looking to the Chinese. I understand that they have to do some management to reduce blight damage there. As for the Chinese, I've been told that they are resistant to blight. How resistant?

Thanks guys.

[castanea]

In Europe they grow Castanea sativa or hybrids of C. Sativa and C. Crenata.

In China they grow primarily C. Mollisima. In Japan, C. Crenata

As a tree, C. Sativa can be quite similar to the American chestnut C. Dentata. The nuts of C. Sativa are usually larger but can range in size from quite small to quite large.

C. Sativa is a bit more blight resistant than C. dentata. Additionally the blight found in Europe is less malignant than the blight found in the US. Most Chinese and Japanese trees have some restance to blight and many are completely resistant. The Chinese hybrid cultivar "Revival" grown in the US is completely resistant to blight. It's very rare for a Chinese tree to die of blight in the US but it does occasionally happen.

[ottawagardener]

Thanks castanea - I knew I could rely on you to give info on chestnuts!

[Owen]

Thanks a lot for the video, it's exactly what I needed! I collected a bag of European chestnuts from the forests of France last month, I was wondering how exactly to start them.

[12540dumont]

If I received chestnuts seeds just recently harvested in a similar climate from mine, should I fridge them till January, or directly seed them now?

I saw the video and it was very informative. I was just wondering since I'm coming up on winter.

Thanks oh gods of chestnut gifts.

You know it's really hard to resist just sitting down and eating them, something about the nut in the belly vs. waiting 6 or 7 years. Well, I waited 7 years for my maples. I guess I got another 7 years in me for chestnuts.

[castanea]

Nov 3, 2011 16:54:38 GMT -5 12540dumont said:

If I received chestnuts seeds just recently harvested in a similar climate from mine, should I fridge them till January, or directly seed them now?

I saw the video and it was very informative. I was just wondering since I'm coming up on winter.

Thanks oh gods of chestnut gifts.

You know it's really hard to resist just sitting down and eating them, something about the nut in the belly vs. waiting 6 or 7 years. Well, I waited 7 years for my maples. I guess I got another 7 years in me for chestnuts.

You can keep them in the fridge until January, but if you plant them now, they will start growing a tap root in a few weeks and wil really take offf in the spring.

[Deleted]

I plan to check, to see whether they're available at a local specialty store, again, this year.

I don't have any experience in growing them, beyond their first 1ga pots, but they seem to be resilient, so far.

As I recall, they were available, from around mid November through Christmas, for the last couple of years.

[castanea]

Nov 3, 2011 23:25:38 GMT -5 @degzing said:

I plan to check, to see whether they're available at a local specialty store, again, this year.

I don't have any experience in growing them, beyond their first 1ga pots, but they seem to be resilient, so far.

As I recall, they were available, from around mid November through Christmas, for the last couple of years.

After you buy them, float them in water. Don't plant the floaters.

[nick123]

Its a great video and very detailed. Please loot at this video as well:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8sC2U1B3J8

[Deleted]

Nov 4, 2011 0:34:50 GMT -5 castanea said:

After you buy them, float them in water. Don't plant the floaters.

Thank you.

In your experience, would the floaters usually be fit to eat?