I meant that I think Mountain Gentry is growing HARC seedlots for the breeding program and not just buying the seeds or plants for their retail customers.
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Bummer. I have a Szego seedling from Perfect Circle, but itâs only about 2 feet tall so probably not vigorous enough. By way of comparison, the Royalmark planted at the same time is over 5 feet tall. Not the worst though. The Peach seedling from the same order and planting is less than a foot tall.
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That does not tell you whether the Szego seedling is vigorous. Vigor expresses itself in many different ways.
Szego seedlings from Perfect Circle start out in short cool summers. They are always smaller after year one than Szego seedlings grown out in, for example, Alabama.
Aside from that, many chestnut seedlings emphasize root growth their first couple of years than top growth.
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All three were 1 year old Perfect Circle seedlings so the comparative size is at least suggestive of relative vigor, they all seem healthy so maybe theyâre growing roots or just faced more competition from nearby big tree roots. Iâll definitely give Szego and Peach seedlings another season or two to prove themselves, but will note that my 6 Red Fern mix bare root plants also planted this spring next to them are all over 4 feet tall and about half are peeking out of their 5 foot tree shelters. Ditto the 4 Red Fern seedlings that I gave my neighbor to plant near by.
So based on current showing, this Szego seedling seem to have a lot of catching up to do.
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The summers in VT are a LOT shorter and cooler than in Iowa. Also, I second @castanea on this one. Buzz sows later than Tom in IA.
Even if we eliminate the location of the nursery, you also have to account for the pollen donator. Youâre more likely to have more american and euro genetics from Red Fern. That wonât help if youâre looking for more dwarfing genetics. Conversely, Buzz is focused on growing seedlings that will pass a zone 4 winter. The seedlings from Buzz will have passed through more environmental stress to thrive.
Buzzâs product page states
I have been assembling an ever growing list of Chestnut seedlings that will grow in Zone 4, and of course much farther south. I donât offer for sale any trees that have not been through at least one winter in the ground successfully. These have been through one winter . Sometimes they frost burn back a little, but they recover. In Zone 5 and up they should all do very well.
Itâs hard to infer vigor from seedlings in the first year or two if they are from different nurseries. I could also point out that even if that was true, that tells you absolutely nothing about taste. Iâm sure @castanea could point out many meh tasting chestnuts from âhigher vigorâ genetics.
If the end goal is smaller trees, and you believe you can infer vigor from just initial health, then you should be chucking the RF seedlings, no?
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I was thinking of using the Szego seedling for grafting Euro/Japanese hybrid scions onto. So the fact that castanea noted that the rootstock should be vigorous suggests that the Szegoâs comparative lack of vigor can be an issue for that purpose. I agree that if it was just compared to Red Fern seedlings grown in Illinois (and which came in the mail as thick as my pinky) that would be unfair, but the Szegoâs growth also compare unfavorably to the 1 year old Royalmark seedling I got from Perfect Circle in the same order.
Doing a little breeding would be secondary to getting a couple good yielding trees going in my yard. So I am very happy with the rate of growth of my Red Fern mix and the Royalmark seedling. I will eventually keep the 3-4 best ones of the 9 planted and graft 2-3 over to scions.
The small tree breeding plan would be to grow a grafted Little Giant and a grafted King Arthur next to each other, on the other end of the yard. Then the other end of the yard will have a pair of Qing and Yixian Orange. Then my parents will end up with a trio of Black Satin, Jenny, and Emalynâs Purple, on 1-3 plants. And hand pollination will occur amongst the various patches in addition.
Itâs all rather mad for someone who started out 2023 just wanting to buy 2 decent seedlings to get some nuts. But what the heck, I go overboard when it comes to plants related plans.
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How do you know your szego seedling wasnât a szego x little giant? Thatâs my other point about not knowing pollen parent.
Also, I realized that youâre probably talking about canopyfm.
Canopy has been purchasing our seed nuts and seed from other excellent sources. They are utilizing our good tree growing practices and developing some of their own.
quote from - https://www.redfernfarm.com/index.php/product-category/chestnuts/
If you were comparing like for like seedlings, that would be more apt. As it stands, youâre still trying to guestimate based on getting an apple from source A and a orange from source B.
Canopyfm doesnât explicitly state where each seed is coming from, what else was planted at that specific order. Example:
PQ-F1s
Mixed seedlings of a collection of trees that are full-sibling offspring of Peach x Qing. These trees are further flanked by grafted Peach and Qing trees.
So this is actually seed from a PQ F1, and you are growing F2. There is no information about what else is growing there.
Since youâre saying you have Red Fern seedlings. I am assuming this is
Iowa Invincible
Mixed seedlings of top-performing trees from Red Fern Farm in Wapello, Iowa.
If they are prioritizing yield as a trait, because itâs whatever tree that generates the most seed for growing seedlings, thatâs probably not the best place to start if your primary goal is âexceptionally tasty.â
If you didnât buy Iowa Invincible, it could be another farm even one not mentioned in their descriptions. There is nothing stating they donât buy seedlings from southern sources like HARC, etc⌠to resell. That could also explain size difference. I am unfamiliar with canopy so maybe they might divulge everything should you inquire. Information about providence is quite important to me. Buzz also doesnât list everything, but he generally will tell you whatever else is in proximity if you buy seed or seedlings if you inquire.
Red fern has the following planted if I remember correctly: badger, qing, giant badger I, giant badger II, large badger, luvall monster, qingsu, szego, auburn super, gideon, mossbarger, peach, shotgun, red fern super. If you were to ask @castanea for absolutely best tasting two from this list I doubt they would also be the most vigorous two.
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I think we may all be overthinking this situation. The seedlings I planted are for production and grafting. The breeding efforts will be using grafted named varieties. I have no interest in vigor (and generally prefer smaller trees so theyâre easier to fit in and care for) except if it contributes to successful grafting of varieties that Iâm interested in.
As it is, itâs probably a non-issue. I did more reading of Szego and both Buzz and Greg Miller claim that it will graft well in anything, so thereâs no particular need to graft on a Szego seedling.
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If youâre grafting of course none of the seedling stuff matters, minus whatever graft compatibility issue may arise.
Half of my plantings are grafts and half will be seedlings, so providence matters a lot for me.
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The CFM Red Fern bareroots were the Iowa Invincibles. What I got were very fresh, healthy, very nice size with good roots, well packed, and is performing well based my plants, my neighborâs plants, and the feedback from the friend that I gave a couple plants to. I had no expectations about getting particular varieties but it seemed likely that I would get at least 50% good to excellent seedling plants. They were also fairly inexpensive at $5.50 each, though I did have to buy 25 as a minimum.
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Ah, would be curious to hear which varieties you went with. You obviously put a lot of thought and care into your chestnut selections! Also I noticed that you grow a lot of tomatoes, which makes me feel better about merely owning about 250 varieties of seeds and growing out about 80 plants this year, despite having a husband who will not eat fresh tomatoes and not particularly liking tomatoes myself. (As I say, I am plant crazy).
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80 tomatoes? Egads! I planted 400 and another 150 or so peppers. All together, I had 160 varieties (tomato and pepper) in the garden.
More on topic, Iâve been reading this thread with an eye to starting a chestnut planting. I delved into history to find out which are best suited for my location. Good info!
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My plant interests tend to the excess. I started out wanting maybe 8 roses planted next to the street and now have a couple hundred. I wanted to try my hand at rose propagation and somehow ended up potting up about 400 plants. Or how I ended up grafting about 70 persimmons this spring despite having no prior experience with grafting (they actually did way better than my stone fruit and pome grafts).
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ACE is a complex Chinese chestnut hybrid. As a first year seedling, it was the smallest tree I grew, out of well over 100 different seedlings. I tried to give it away. No one would take it, so I kept it.
ACE became one of the most vigorous chestnut trees I have ever grown. In a typical year the tree would flower at least twice and sometimes 3 times. In some years I would cut off the latest burs because they would often not mature. Nut quality was superb.
The nuts-
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Point made! The Peach and Szego seedlings get another 3 seasons to prove themselves. However, I really hope theyâll turn out to be short internode true dwarfs that can be bred against Little Giant. But thatâs not going to happen unless they have very unusual pollen parents or an amazing mutation.
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Just a data point â Today I harvested these. It represents roughly 2/3 of the crop on a seedling Qing, one of two planted in my yard in 2015.
Edit 1: Next day (9/25) I picked more, roughly half as much. So I think thatâs roughly 90% of what was on this tree. I was curious enough to count the nuts 1 by 1. Total is 529.
Edit 2: Then the day after (9/26), I picked another 205 from the same tree. Obviously I had underestimated how many remained, which is typical for me. So that brings the total harvest from this one tree to 734. Itâs almost empty now. 
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Very nice!
Do the nuts have some of the sweetness of Qing?
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@castanea â I donât think Iâm equipped to answer. I bought the trees as âQingâ from Stark Brothers. So they were both labeled Qing, but they pollinate each other so they canât be clones. Also, they behave differently. One has larger nuts. One blossoms and ripens slightly later (but still with some overlap). Someone on this forum suggested that they are Qing seedlings and that makes total sense to me.
Anyway, Iâve never tasted a Qing that is not one of my Qings.
Straight from the tree, Iâd describe the nuts as good but somewhat bland. I know that they are fully ripe because the husks are opening and the nuts are dropping to the ground. But they develop additional flavor after some curing. Maybe you have some advice on how to treat them?
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The original Qing has nuts that are sweet right off the tree, which is very unusual. Most other chestnuts will slowly develop sweetness for a week or two.
In terms of how to eat these, I would cure them for a week or two and then boil them for an hour.
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@castanea: three more random questions.
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I came across your 2021 TACN talk and noticed that it references two Nanking Specials, but HARC and comments here references only one Nanking Special. Iâm curious about the other one
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In that TACF talk, Sandra A mentioned that she thought Tiny Giant seedlings all inherited the dwarfing trait and was also experimenting in using LG as dwarfing rootstock and internode. This all seems very exciting but your comments about the variety in this thread suggest that the dwarfing is likely not strongly inherited and the vigor mismatch will likely result in graft incompatibility for chestnuts. Iâm curious if her comments are based on field observations or are more the âthis seems like an exciting research topicâ sort.
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Where would I be able to get scions to your varieties? It seems like Greg Miller and HARC both have most/all the best varieties but neither appear to be selling scions or grafted plants.
Thanks in advance and sorry for keep bugging you here! Iâve managed to resist Facebook for almost 20 years, it would be funny if I finally succumb to join the chestnut grower groupâŚ
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