Chestnut trees

“I don’t send out amny but they are free and the quality is excellent…”

I can absolutely vouch for castanea on that, I have a half-dozen Deeppots with various chestnuts from him starting their first year in the world. Great, generous member…

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Maybe I’m missing something or just not doing something right but I don’t see a private message option. My email is smithjameson16@gmail.com would you mind emailing me?

In my area it seems like chestnut weevils can be a pretty major issue in the nuts. Two Chinese chestnut trees that I planted 9 years ago have given me the most satisfying growth of any trees I’ve planted, though, and they’ve been producing for at least a few years already, too. I love the trees even apart from the nuts. As far as the nuts, late frosts are an issue for me some years. Maybe that will help to keep the weevils from getting as bad out of hand. I’m hopeful that if I pick them up very thoroughly every day or two that that will go a long way to keeping the weevil population very minimal. I would have much less hope for getting very many useful nuts if I mostly just left them for wildlife. I have friends west of Charlotte in the NC foothills that really like chestnuts and forage for and eat all sorts of other wild food – they’re probably the most impressive naturalists and foragers I know – but they have a mature chestnut that they consider worthless for nuts because of weevil damage. Another friend with an older chestnut tree does better as far as the weevils: the early part of the crop is pretty good if picked up right away.

If you have the only chestnut trees in the immediate area, then try to pick up every nut every year as quickly as you can. If you let the nuts sit on the ground the weevil larvae exit the nut and bury themselves in the ground. It helps to have some metal buckets under the trees. You can just put the fallen nuts into the buckets even if you don’t want them. The weevils will exit the nuts and have nowhere to go.

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Good news for the America Chestnut. :+1::heavy_check_mark:
https://www.newstread.com/kitchener-waterloo/rare-chestnut-find-this-tree-its-a-survivor/?doing_wp_cron=1514982639.7024400234222412109375

Thanks for posting but this is almost completely meaningless. There are many young American chestnut trees growing in the eastern US and Canada in areas of low blight pressure (like where this tree was found) that have no signs of blight.

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Look into the AU series of chestnuts… bred and selected to perform in Alabama.
http://www.ag.auburn.edu/comm/news/1995/chestnuts.php
Several, like the ‘AU Buck’ group, have been selected primarily for wildlife mast production, but I’d hazard a guess that the nuts are just fine for human consumption.

The Wildlife Group, back home, had been the official source for the AU Buck series, but I’m not seeing them listed on the website at this point in time.

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Red Fern Farm offers Auburn Super Seedlings. These are seedlings, but considering the likelihood of delayed incompatibility issues with chestnut grafting this may not be a bad route to go?

If you live in zones 5 or 6 seedlings are probably a better way to go than grafted trees. Red Fern has lots of good seedling options. Qing seedlings often produce nuts as sweet as the parent.

My oldest chestnut tree (planted from Restoration 1.0 backcross seed) is actually starting to look more like a tree (instead of just a bush).

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Looking for some hardy chestnut seeds to grow in zone 4a. If anyone has some they can spare Id pay shipping…

Pm castanae.

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userid must be spelled wrong? Says cannot be found…

@Castanea

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Castanea,

Do you have any remaining seed you would be willing to send me to grow this spring? I know it’s late, but I am just now joining this site today and it won’t hurt to ask :grin:
I’m very interested in any Chinese or Chinese hybrids.

What is the smallest chestnut tree that can be grown? I know that chestnuts are a big business in Mi. so I know I can grow them but I want a dwarf, is this possible?

I don’t have much left. Where are you located?

I am in Mississippi. I tried to PM you my address, but I cannot find out how to to do it on this site format. PM me your email and I will send it to you. And THANKS !!

any that will survive central ND?

Castanea, my email is
cauthen_c@yahoo.com
Send me a message and I will send you my address