Another Euro grower seemingly joining the forum to obtain scion wood. He made this post an hour after joining.
Doesn’t mean the motives are wrong, but commercial growers sometimes come here to obtain patented varieties for their own production.
In such cases, trades are usually unreciprocated trips to Europe and often illegal.
This is why the scion exchange topic is limited to members who have established a higher level of trust.
Alan,
One must be an amateur at the beginning of the road. I am an active reader of various topics related to persimmons and paw paws. But I have not had any problems finding them in Europe because many growers already have them in Czech Republic, Germany, France, Belgium, etc. Growingfruit users like Austro_PawPaw made searching even easier.
So after several years I managed to get almost every variety that I found interesting to try out in Poland. Pawpaws bought in European nurseries, American persimmons, persimmons hybrids and mulberries successfully grafted from scionwood purchased in Cliff’s England nursery.
Please do not find me as some tricky commerial grower - these are my first steps on this forum. As far as I know the only varietes that are patented in my small collection are Peterson’s varietes (available in one French nursery and Swiss Lubera) and none of the chestnuts that I mentioned before are restricted.
You would not be surprised looking for any contact if you lived in a country where pawpaw itself is almost not known, not mentioning it’s superior varietes, and persimmons are thought to be some super exotic plants.
So, that is my confession 
OK, but relationships usually take more than an hour to build as does trust.
No confession necessary. I am one of the first in this forum and I have just moved to the south of France. The apricot varieties here are unbelievable and not available to the States unless you take scion with a certificate which you can do. It’s a bit of paperwork to do, but for those who really want it, there isn’t a variety not available to you (except for those I don’t know about!). Welcome. Mrs. G
Try Washington Chestnut Company in Washington state. They ship chestnut materials overseas, including Szego -
http://www.washingtonchestnut.com/
You can get Bouche de Betizac, Maraval and Marigoule wood in Europe… These nuts are Maraval.
Thank you Sir. I already mailed Washington Chestnut Company and indeed they ship overseas - very fast contact. Alas, they have to have three growing seasons inspections and Washington is now quarantined by the EU for Xyllela fastidiosa. I wonder whether agricultural inspector decisions differ between the states.
Right now I will stick with them. If anyone have another source, please share - much appreciated.
To compare the size of local chestnut to yours - this year’s crops (September 29’th)
You can try redfernfarm. I dont know if they ship outside US.
I took the family for a field trip to Route 9 Cooperative in Carrolton, OH last week. As advised I picked up a Chinese seedling, Qing to be exact. I planted it yesterday and hope it compliments my other varieties well.
Their packing building was very interesting. I should have taken pictures, but it didn’t occur to me at the time. I also bought 5 lbs of chestnuts to get my by until my trees start producing. So if anyone has a favorite recipe, let me know!
Favorite recipe: peel chestnut, eat.
Second favorite: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/42110/chestnut-stuffing/
As maybe some members already know…I’m a specialized persimmon grower but of course I also grow lots of other crops. I also grow and propagate chestnuts. However, I do not grow any of the know varieties but instead I look for wild chestnuts in my own country and pick out the very best ones to propagate. That way I’m sure that they will perform well in my area and not have any late ripening issues or other problems. Of course I select for size but just as important I always select on how easy the nuts can be peeled! In France there are 2 words for chestnut: “châtaigne” and “marron”. The first one is the wild chestnut as you find them on trees in the wild with usually smaller nuts and usually very hard to peel. The second one is the same nut but usually (much) larger and even more important: The inner skin should come off very easily and not penetrate the nut! I always base my selection on those two criteria.
In the following pictures you can see my selection of a “marron” type chestnut. the nuts are not huge but peel extremely easy.
Here are a few tips on how to prepare chestnuts:
First of all you should store your freshly harvested chestnuts for at least 2 weeks in a moist substrate/peat (like stratifying seeds). they will get sweeter and easier to peel.
Make a cut along the upper side of the nut.
Roast the nuts until the outer skin becomes slightly charred.
your roasted chestnuts should open up along the cut and the inner skin should stick to the outer skin peeling it off automatically.
After cooling you should be able to take the clean chestnuts out of the remaining peel-skin.
Here is how not to do it:
Never cook chestnuts in water!!! the tannin of the inner skin will penetrate the nut and leave an astringent and unpleasant taste and at the same time the sugars that are in the nut will dissolve in the water and ruin the sweet taste of your chestnut. Once boiled it becomes very hard to remove the inner skin of the nut. your chestnuts will also get an unpleasant grey bluish color…
Another way to prepare chestnut is by deep frying them: in this case you just cut the nut in half, completely with outer skin and all and you deep fry them for a few minutes @ 160°C. After deep frying the skin will come of very easily, it will just crumble… This is not my favorite way to prepare chestnuts because they will not have the smokey flavor
Those are some nice looking chestnuts! 
I agree that propagating best local wild chestnuts is great but all our wild chestnuts have problem with gall wasp so planting resistant hybrids like Bouche de Betizac is almost a must.
I hope the situation will improve with introduction of Torymus sinensis, a parasitoid of the chestnut gall wasp.
Do you have problem with gall wasp on your varieties?
“Gillet” chestnuts. Castanea sativa/crenata. These are all from the same bur.
Gillet nuts from one bur - 47 grams, 44 grams, and 50 grams
@primoz: We do not have problems with gall wasps (yet) . I hope it stays that way…
Castanea:These are some really nice looking chestnuts. I presume “Gillet” ripens quite late?
It ripens from October 1-October 15 in California zone 9 in a normal year. Everything is very late this year.
140 g from one bur… impressive numbers (22 in kg).
Can you give me the numbers for Bouche de Betizac at your place and when does it ripen?
Bouche de Betizac normally ripens from September 15-30.
Average size BdB nuts are usually between 25-35 grams.
Average size Gillet nuts are usually between 35-40 grams.
The average for Colossal nuts is usually between 20-25 grams because Colossal produces a lot of small nuts along with very large nuts. BdB and Gillet produce very few small nuts.
Thank you!
Nuts are bigger at your place in zone 9. Here in zone 7 (Central Europe) BdB nuts are usually between 20-26 grams and they ripen two weeks later.
We usually have first frost in November so Gillet could (only just) ripen here.
Bergantz, Szego and Jenny as well because they are all earlier than Gillet.
I might try these varieties if they ever come to Europe and until then I’ll stuck with BdB (the only variety I know resistant to gall wasp).
Luckily problem with blight is slowly improving since the fungus got viral infection 
now we just need the gall wasp predators to do their thing.
How long did it take the tree to start producing? I put in a couple chinese, but those(pic) look like a meal.
I don’t remember, but probably 3 or 4 years. Most Chinese are better quality though.
