A few years back I paid a visit to an ACF test orchard to gather some nuts. It was interesting seeing the degree of variation amongst the seedlings. I remember happening upon one tree with a decidedly un-dentata growth habit. It was a tip bearer, and the weight of the nuts all the way at the ends of the branches caused them to hang down dramatically. The tree was precocious and low vigor to start, and I imagine the branches hanging down further dwarfed the tree. The nuts were of unremarkable size but there were quite a few per cluster. I remember thinking that would probably be a useful trait to someone from a breeding perspective.
Thanks for the tip. I just bought 20lbs of XL. Why should they be stored at room temp for a week before refrigerating? Is it just a matter of some starches turning to sugars? And does that time shrink as the season wears on? I assume they will go through a non-refrigerated period when shipping too.
Actually, I like a modification of this idea. I can plant all 3 and over time, if I have trouble continuing to fit all of them, I can graft the others (and more?) onto the one with either the best shape/position or fruit and eventually remove the not-as-nice trees.
I also found this from the University of Missouri. It seems to be saying that with careful pruning, the trees will be 3.5-4M (11.5-13ft) wide. And the diagram above it says that there should be 0.7M (2 ft) between the tips of the branches from neighboring trees.
That sounds a lot like my 14 foot spacing (11.5-13 + 2 = 13.5-15 ft). Though if it doesnât work (or is too much work), I can always go with removing one or more trees.
Right now, I think the plan is 3 large, 2nd year seedlings from PCF:
Qing Seedling RR (or should I get Qing Seedling (Stehli)?
Lui Seedling RR or Sadie Hunter
Gellatly Sweet (Stehli)
Though I can easily be convinced to change itâŚ
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Prairie Grove ships freshly harvested chestnuts, so they need to be cured to convert the starch into sugars. It also dries them out slightly and make them release easily from their papery skin. Put them in a cardboard box in a cool dry place for a week or two, until the shells give away slightly to pressure. Once they get to that stage, bag them into Ziploc bags and refrigerated them, otherwise theyâll start to dry out and harden. Properly cured chestnuts can be almost candy sweet.
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That seems really close for seedling trees, so the recommendation may be for trees grafted to Qing which tend to be lower vigor but very high yielding. Tom Wahl mentioned that Chinese orchards are on 4x7 grids and have 4x the yield of American orchards (9,000 lbs per acre rather than around 2,000 lbs per acre), so maybe thereâs a pruning regime that can work out. Still, Tom Wahl recommends planting on 20x20 grid for seedlings in Iowa and then thinning by 50 percent after about 10 years, so just be aware that you may end up with very big trees that shade each other and reduce each otherâs production if you go with 3 seedling trees.
Iâd steer you towards Qing or Qing derivative variety seedlings as many are sufficiently precocious to stunt their growth and make them acceptable yard trees. Plant 5-10 and plan on keeping the best 2. Liu is a less improved variety compared to Qing and Sadie Hunter (as well as Lockwood and King Arthur) are still pretty big trees, just with an âorchard tree shapeâ with a shorter and wider canopy. Donât know about the Stehli variety though I know Buzz thinks very highly of Stehli selections, but that might be a strike against them since Buzz favors cold tolerant vigorous trees whereas you want precocious small trees.
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PS - this talk by Castanea and Dr. Sandra A. has quite a few pictures of various varieties, to give you some idea if what the varieties grow up to.
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I watched the video and felt bad that Castanea wasnât able to get through all his prepared remarks. But, I thought it was very interesting that Qing seems to have different genetics than many others, with Pumila, instead of being pure Chinese. Seems like that is a big driver of the smaller size, Itâs surprising that it didnât get the smaller nut size that Pumila is known for.
I think youâve mostly sold me on that approach. Right now, Iâm thinking 4 trees total, 3 of Qing (maybe 1-2 of each of the types) and one Gellaty Sweet, with the GS at the farthest North position (to not shade the others). To fit 4 instead of 3, I drop from 14 to 12 foot spacing (as best I can figure, after playing around with different configs for a bit). 5 trees was tempting, but Iâd be dropping down to 9-10ft. With 12 foot spacing, I figure I can put off the decision for a while, hopefully long enough that I have a solid opinion of each tree.
Any idea what the âRRâ suffix that many of the seedlings have? I have a guess that it is related to being blight resistant by both parents (or is there 2 genes for it?) But, it doesnât seem spelled out anywhere. If nobody knows, I can email PCF and ask.
I actually just also bought some chestnuts from Perfect Circle just this fall, and asked the same thing regarding the RR. This is what Buzz told me:
âThe Szego in single quotes which are from my farm -PCF , are from a graft. the Szego seedling, which is what it says in the drop-down menu, come from the RR orchard trees grown from Szego seed. RR connotes Rusty Russel orchard. I have been evaluating his seedling trees for the past few years, and offering the best for sale. I will comment that all of the RR trees are seedlings, but all the ones that I offer have great productivity and flavor. All chestnut seed are open pollinated (unless hand made and bagged) so 1/2 the genetics come from another tree. The RR orchard is all very high quality trees. So we can expect high quality progeny. My Szego is likely pollinized by a Layeroka seedlingâ
So, any seed prefixed RR is âa seedling of a seedlingâ, as I understand it - two generations removed. Whereas the ones in single quotes are seedlings of grafts - one generation removed from the âreal dealâ. But, it sounds like Buzz has evaluated these second-generation seedlings for some time, I assume to make sure they mostly maintain the good qualities of their grandparent.
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Thanks. I wouldnât have been able to guess that 
Ah. Thatâs unfortunate, as I was hoping to get Qingâs compact size and I assume that the further away a seedling is, the less likely it will come through.
I did find another place selling Qing seedlings, Propagateag:
They say:
Compared to most chestnut seedlings, Qing represent both the mothers and fathers by controlling pollen cloud through isolating the grafted orchard.
That seems to be saying that they are growing Qing in an isolated field and it is both the mother and the father, something I didnât think was possible. Is Qing self-fertile? Or am I reading that wrong?
Has anyone ordered from Propagateag?
The Propagate site wasnât so clear to me. From scrolling through, I think they are getting seeds from HARC, University of Missouri PQK section. So, it is an area with grafted Peace, Qing, and Kohr. So, the pollen comes from grafted trees but would not be all from grafted Qing trees.
If you scroll a bit further down, the Qing section is right under the UoM part. The Qing seedlings come from Bullrock Nursery, which I donât see anywhere online.
It also says:
Select seedlings of a grafted Qing orchard with a controlled pollen cloud.
Maybe a âcontrolled pollen cloudâ is a manual release of pollen from some other cultivar to pollinate the Qing?
Is this a good source in addition to Buzz? Prices seem good
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That could be from Michael Parkâs chestnut orchard. He has an orchard that was primarily Qing and Eaton grafted trees. So the advantage of getting seed (or seedlings) that come from his orchard is that you are more likely to have known parents on both sides. Or course he does have a few other varieties as well, but most of his Qing and Eaton are in a group as I understand it.
I understand seedlings of Qing and a few others are reliably pretty good, but If you can be patient, tissue culture trees are starting to become available so that you can get the specific cultivar you want on its own roots and avoid the issues of graft compatibility, smaller nut size, etc. that come from grafting Chinese chestnuts. I believe West Coast Chestnut mentioned they are working on some full Chinese varieties including Yixian large, possibly for delivery next fall. It looks like theyâll have Szego soon as well, but Szego is a complex hybrid and not fully blight-resistant.
While their minimum sale seems to be 20 trees, it might be worth trying to put together a group buy in order to get access to these.
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Since it is a West coast nursery, it doesnât look like a many Chinese chestnuts, particularly Qing. Burnt Ridge has self-rooted Colossal as well, some so large they canât ship.
I sent Buzz a couple questions, one to confirm the parent/grandparent status of Qing for the RR and Stehli seedlings. No response yet on this, but I just asked this morning.
Edit: per Buzz, Qing is the mother of both.
The other question I sent was about Fisher, as I see it labeled as Chinese and dwarf. He sent me some pics of a 70-80 year old tree. It looks to be about 25-30 feet tall, so I have to imagine it could be held to 15 feet with regular pruning.
Fisher, 70-80 year old (complex hybrid, likely from TVA, possibly similar to Qing):
The nuts look at least medium, but Iâm not the best judge:
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Thanks for the information! If they could clone the best Chinese varieties that would be a game changer for orchards and hobbyists alike.
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Pecan has been clonally propagated several times over the last 20 years. Randallâs work in New Mexico is an example. However, propagating commercially is still not quite there. Part of this is because - with pecan - the rootstock is important to soil adaptation. Plus, pecan shows very few problems with graft incompatibility compared with chestnut and other species. Iâm looking forward to being able to purchase clonally propagated chestnuts.
The Chestnuts from Prairie Grove arrived.
Can anyone tell from the looks if they are Chinese, Euro, etc? Or do they all look pretty similar? I figure that there could be quite a variety, since PG says that they are âan association of over 60 chestnut growers from Iowa, Illinois, and Missouriâ
They look good, but there is a big variety of sizes for XL chestnuts.
I took another look at their site and it looks like I got the last batch, as they went âout of stockâ with everything in the 3-4 days between my order and when it arrived.
I was impatient and cooked up a batch when I first got them. Some where good, I had issues getting the thin skin off for a lot of them. Hopefully the curing you suggest will help.
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Theyâre either all Chinese or maybe Chinese-hybrids. Theyâre sourced from around Iowa, so European chestnuts wouldnât make it there due to the harsh temperatures and blight pressure.
Plus Euro chestnuts tend to have woody bitter skins and have a noticeably less dense texture. Good Euro varieties can get very large and sweet with curing, but I definitely prefer Chinese chestnuts.
My preferred way to cook them is to score them with a single slash using a pair of needle nose ARS pruner, then cook them in a fully enclosed foil packet at 225F for about 90 minutes. 7-10 days of curing should help a lot with the flavor and skin release. Just wait until the shells give away a little when pressed and then refrigerate.
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Just bought 2 pounds of large chestnuts from the Asian market. They are likely from Korea. Roasted them and they tasted great. I put 2 chestnuts in the flower pot and hopefully they will germinate and ready to plant in the Spring.
Tony
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How did they peel? Iâve never had Japanese/Korean chestnuts but supposedly many/most donât peel well. Glad they tasted great! Thanks for the post.
The outer shell peeled well but the brown inner layer was harder to peel off.
Tony
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