Cultural Suggestions | Oikos Tree Crops

Chestnuts

Cultural Suggestions


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Cultural Suggestions
Growing the American Chestnut-We are unable to maintain pure American chestnut to fruiting age before the blight destroys them. Possibly someone will find a true producing blight resistant tree that produces all resistant seedlings. I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t exist somewhere. Our goal is to create a healthy long lived tree via natural cross pollination and not necessarily to recreate exactly a long extinct tree by massive domestication. Our crosses are not based on percentages i.e. the higher the percentage the more “pure” or better the tree. Our plants are not first generation. We always use mature fruiting trees for seed that are completely healthy.

JUST TWO PLEASE: Cross Pollination: You need two plants or only burrs will form with no nuts inside. You can use any two plants; it doesn’t matter if they are from the same strain, species or hybrid. Just two and both trees will produce nuts.

Chestnuts are an easy to cultivate nut. Chestnut trees self sow easily and are easy to manage with other mixed plantings or in the “wild”. Full sun is best. Avoid overly alkaline or wet soils. Chestnuts grow best in sandy soils that are slightly acidic and do well in the oak-hickory soils of the Midwest and Northeast. Young trees are drought-sensitive when young, but once established, trees are able to cope with even the most severe drought. Having a diversity of seedling trees insures good yields which helps level out alternate bearing. The biggest insect pest is the chestnut weevil. Try to harvest all the nuts to keep this critter under control. When planting use a scoop of forest soil or Biopak to insure complete inoculation with beneficial bacteria and fungi. Acid loving plant fertilizers with added iron sulfate are good for chestnuts. Treeshelters work wonders on chestnuts with trees reaching the top of a 5 ft. shelter in one year. Deer love the young foliage of chestnuts so protection may be needed. We prefer 5 Ft. Tubex. A spacing of 20 x 20 ft. is common for this tree, but if you are planting an orchard, you might want to use 20 x 40 ft. based on the variety or type. Chestnuts can be used as a hedgerow plant where spacing could be as close as 10 ft. apart as long as there is not competition on either side. All chestnuts ripen in the burr which are squirrel-proof until they split open. Ripening begins in mid-September. After harvest let the nuts dry a little it will increase their sweetness and improve the flavor.

Size	Seed Source	Price	Tax	Quantity
CS-Chestnuts (CS- Chestnuts)	—	$ 0.00	6%

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