i love nuts but I’ve never tasted a properly prepared chestnut before. i tried some when i was stationed in korea. there was 4 big trees in the base park that were loaded. no one picked them. i tried eating a few raw and they were very bitter but i didn’t know to cook them. remember they were huge nuts tho. ! too bad as the ground under those trees in oct was covered 4in. think with nuts! squirrels were very fat!
Some seed from Connecticut Agriculture Research Station which I will grow out and trial here in Maine. Open pollinated nuts from ‘Sadie Hunter,’ ‘Little Giant,’ ‘Lockwood’. LG is a natural dwarf, nice choice for a small backyard. Thanks to @Chestnut for the lead on getting my mitts on these, and to the staff at the research station for the work done to improve this species.
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jesse, if you don’t mind the question, how did you get those? Do they have a link or did you contact someone directly?
I bought a house in CT that has 6 small chestnut trees planted on the property. I have found receipts in the shed saying the previous owner bought a Yooma, Marigoule, Bouche de Betizac and a Colossal chestnut tree. I don’t know which is which cultivar and there are 2 more trees than the receipts show. I haven’t done anything with them but I will prune them as they’re growing like bushes. Anyway, I was able to find out that Colossal and Bouche de Betizac don’t produce pollen and Marigoule does. Could you please describe YooMa so that I might better be able to do some detective work to determine which tree is which?
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Yoo Ma would normally be the smallest of the trees if they were all the same age. It would have the smallest narrowest leaves also. Yoo Ma does produce pollen. Make sure that they are all healthy above the graft. When they start growing like bushes it can mean that the graft is dead or dying and the rootstock is pushing up sprouts.
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Thank you very much Castanea. I appreciate the description of Yoo Ma and info about growth. I exaggerated by saying bush-like. Two trees have had the central leader die and sprout from below but I think that I am lucky because the shoots are above the graft. The trees are fenced in but neglected insofar as not pruned and weeds. I’ll give them attention this year and hopefully I can get some nuts soon. I am excited to see if the differences in the cultivars is noticeable to me. Knowing which cultivars produce viable pollen will help me guess which cultivar is which. Thanks again.
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I have a pollen technical question. I read that you should not pollinate a European/Japanese hybrid with a Chinese tree because it causes some nuts to be brown rotten-like. Does anyone know whether you can pollinate a Chinese chestnut will pollen from a Eur/Jap hybrid? Of the pollen sterile cultivars, which are the best tasting, good peeling, cultivars that are disease hardy and zone 6 tolerant? I read that Bergantz is pollen sterile, tastes great, peel well, and large size but probably not cold tolerant. I read that Skookum are pollen sterile and exceptional flavor as well but I don’t see people talking about this cultivar often. Balsalta #2 is pollen sterile and allegedly flavorful but I have not seen anything on disease tolerance. If anyone has experience with these I would be most grateful for info. Thank you
The only Chinese pollen that has been shown to cause internal kernel breakdown (IKB) in another chestnut is the cultivar Benton Harbor. The only tree that has been shown to get IKB from Benton Harbor pollen is Colossal. There has been no study to show that any other Chinese tree causes IKB in European/Japanese trees. I have grown Chinese trees together with European hybrid trees for 27 seven years and the Chinese pollen has never caused IKB in any other chestnut. So, don’t grow Benton Harbor and Colossal together. Bergantz is probably cold hardy in zone 6 but it probably does not have enough blight resistance. Skookum has two problems - the nut does not peel well and the tree does not have enough blight resistance. Bisalta #2 does not have enough blight resistance. Luvall’s Monster is a Chinese hybrid and pollen sterile and has blight resistance. The nuts peel well but many of the nuts have split shells. That is not a problem if you are eating the nuts yourself but it makes them difficult to sell. But you do not need pollen sterile Chinese cultivars.
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You really know castanea! Are you a chestnut farmer or a serious hobbyist? No need to answer that as it might be too personal. Are you knowledgeable with persimmon cultivars as well? I want to plant a non-astringent Japanese persimmon and want the best tasting cultivar, not caring so much about absolute yield and size. Thank you so much for that information about cross pollination. It just goes to show that you can’t believe everything you read. I’m not likely to add any chestnut trees in near future but I am curious what you think about these three: Jenny, Szego, and Marigoule. I suspect Jenny is most blight hardy and probably the tallest/most upright of the 3. Szego is most orchard-like. I read that Marigoule & Szego are quite pretty, leaves and male catkins. Thank you gain for sharing your knowledge. I think most nursery websites give partial truths - every cultivar can’t be easy peeling and good tasting.
The best tasting non astringent persimmon I know in the US is Suruga, but it is a very long season persimmon. It works well in zones 8 and 9 but might not ripen in time in zone 7.
Marigoule has some blight resistance and is pretty cold hardy. The nuts taste good and peel well. They drop mid season. Marigoule is also a good pollen producer. The nuts do sometimes have split shells.
Szego has some blight resistance and is pretty cold hardy. The nuts taste good and peel well. They drop mid season. Szego is also a good pollen producer.
Jenny is very blight resistant and cold hardy. The nuts drop early, taste good and peel well.
All three of these chestnut trees tend to be very erect growers. None are true timber types. None are true orchard types.
Interesting. Those must be in bad shape.
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Tell me when you’ve found a tree of Paragon.
(That’s a joke). Paragon is a cultivar thought to be extinct (Or is it?!).
There are at least 2 or 3 of them around. The article mentions one in Nebraska and another in California but there is apparently also one in Canada. The Felix Gillet Institute has been selling a chestnut tree they have identified as an American tree for the last few years. The tree they are selling is not pure American though. It appears to be an American/European hybrid. The FGI tree is actually the tree from Brownsville that has been identified as possibly being Paragon.
Interesting. FGI no longer lists it on their website.
They sold out last year. The originally said they were going to reintroduce some excellent Felix Gillet chestnut trees and then failed to do so. They have sold only two chestnut trees - this possible Paragon tree which had nothing to do with Felix Gillet, and a tree they claim is the French cultivar Marron de Lyon (it isn’t but that’s whole 'nother story) which Felix Gillet did not originate either. I don’t know why they failed to introduce true Felix Gillet chestnut trees.
What do you all do to over winter/stratify chestnuts for planting? Ive tried placing them in sand in buckets for the winter and leaving them in my garage. I’ve had a lot of mold issues. What gives you the most success. I currently have about 50 American chestnuts growing in a raised air pruning bed, to be planted out in the fall.
People use all sorts of methods including the one you used. The primary goals are to keep temperatures low, at or slightly above freezing, and keep moisture at a high enough level tat the nuts don’t dry out but not so high that mold is a problem. Peat moss works better than sand because it tends to stop or at least control mold growth.
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I put them in the fridge in late fall with peat moss in sandwich bags with toothpick holes punched in them and just a hint of moisture. By Spring the root radicles where climbing out of the bag. Almost 100% takes. This pic was in January.
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Are there any worthwhile (tasty & productive; size not an issue) low-chill Chestnuts I can trial? From the info I’ve found, most chill fruit do fine in my neck of the woods up to 200 hours (despite the lack of chill), and sometimes over that limit.