They’re probably better than BdB so if you cross with BdB you’ll be going down in quality. BdB has large nuts but the nut flavor is average, the burs tend to have too many nuts and many center nuts are flat.
Do you have something better than BdB to cross with?
Where are you located?
Castanea, my location is south-eastern Poland, currently climate zone 6a, previously we had zone 5.
Apart from BdB, I also have Marrisard and Marrone du val di Susa in my collection, but I realize that I may no longer have them in the spring. I am very close to climate zone 5 and frost can hit us at any time.
In my collection I also have a local C.sativa with sweet nuts and dense flesh for this species. The weight of nuts from 3-year-old grafted trees is 15-22 g. This may be C.sativa with the highest documented frost resistance in Europe. The mother tree survived the winters of 1930 and 1941 without major damage, when temperatures in the area reached -40 degrees Celsius. This is 1 of 7 trees from the Castanea genus that survived those winters in this area. However, the remaining trees may be dentata or dentata x sativa. They produce very small nuts.
I have another question - do the sweet C. crenata trees from Korea shed their leaves in winter? Mine don’t shed leaves, that’s why I’m asking.
I don’t know if the crenata trees will shed their leaves. Most crenata do, but not all.
You have a challenging environment. I wish you luck.
A newer chestnut cultivar grown out by Route 9 Coop in Ohio produces some good sized chestnuts that peel well and are tasty. This is a Chinese/Japanese hybrid named ‘Cirone’-
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I’ve appreciated your posts so much as I’ve started to learn about chestnut varieties after reading Restoration Agriculture. Do you have a farm in Sacramento that can be visited?
I’m looking at the first emerged seedling from chestnuts I started in containers 2 months ago. Hopefully many more will show up soon. I started about 200 nuts.
Castanea, Cirone sembra una varieta’ eccezionale, ci sai dire qualcosa in piu’
I left Sacramento in 2020 and the new owners of my property cut down all the chestnut trees and all the fruit trees.
Cutting down fruit and nut trees is a cherished American hobby.
I have never seen the tree and don’t now anything about its productivity or growth form. Apparently it has good blight resistance.
Is there a market for chestnut?
@Robert In our area the going price for chestnuts on FB marketplace this year was $8-10/lb, mostly for Dunstans and a few unknown Chinese types - nothing great in other words. So there is definitely a market for them around here.
I’m new in the chestnut game, but that seems expensive. Wonder how much they sold? Now I’m wondering if I need a couple more.
There’s a huge market in much of the US. Not only do chestnuts sell out quickly, but it’s hard to find good fresh ones at all in many places.
Prices per lb in the US can vary from $3 per lb for small wormy nuts in areas with lots of trees, to as much as $18 per lb for fresh large nuts in high end markets in California.
You could easily sell these for $15 per lb in Los Angeles or SF or maybe even Sacramento-
You have amazing amounts of information, Castanea. You also have a great name.
I live in the Portland OR area. I planted many Colossal chestnuts in the fall in the hopes of getting seedlings, because I had not yet read your posts. I was thinking of ordering from Burnt Ridge. I was thinking of ordering a Bergantz seedling, maybe 2. Which of these other varieties do you think would do well here? Bisalta No. 3, Bracalla, Chinese Chestnut, Maraval, Marrisard, Marron? Thanks,
John S
PDX OR
Just to clarify, I am looking at buying seedlings of these varieties.
Thanks,
John S
Colossal seedlings make good rootstock so view this as an opportunity to graft the best cultivars available in the future. Generally European or European/Japanese hybrids graft well and Burnt Ridge has a good selection of scion wood. If you want some Chinese chestnut trees, you should grow from seeds but Burnt Ridge’s won’t be the best source. However, all Chinese chestnuts generally won’t perform well in OR; it would be better to grow hybrids with 1/2ish Chinese genetics, like Luvall’s Monster, Sleeping Giant, or Pandora.
I believe the general consensus is that the vast majority of Euro seedlings are much inferior to the parent and grafting is the way to go for them. I would wait a couple years and then top work the existing Colossal seedlings with Euro/Japanese scions from Burnt Ridge or Fruitwood.
I actually bought a bunch of named Euro chestnut varieties nuts from Burnt Ridge this fall. The taste of pretty good after a couple weeks of fridge aging, but harder to peel and not as good fill (though that could be due to the specifics of 2023 weather in Washington State). The culinary Chinese chestnuts I got from Prairie Grove and Route 9 were way better even though both professed a challenging year for their chestnut crop.
Do you know what all is graft compatible with chinese seedlings?
I can’t imagine that the current very high prices are sustainable in the next 5 years. A lot of acreage is coming into production in the next couple years and I am starting to see American grown Chinese chestnuts in Maryland Asian supermarkets for $4-6 per pound. They’re way easier to grow over a wide portion of the country compared to any other nut crop, so there’s no reason for them to maintain a premium price over time.
Seedlings of European chestnut trees or European hybrids generally do not produce great nuts, certainly not as good as the parent tree. The solution is to use the seedlings for grafting to cultivars.
Everything will grow well in PDX except Chinese.
Some of the better Europeans; like Gillet and Torakuri, might mature nuts too late in PDX .
Maraval nuts do not peel well and they drop pretty late as well.
Marissard drop pretty late and are not as good as the best Europeans.
The best choices for your area are Judea, Marigoule, Boitano/Fife, Serr/Yolo Grande, Bergantz, Bisalta #2, Szego, Bouche de Betizac, Chiusa Pesio, Comballe, and De Coppi Marrone.
