Most Chinese chestnut trees are blight resistant. There are no stands of blight resistant American chestnut trees.
Barndog56
Dunstan are Chinese.
What do you do for rose chafer beetles?
Source?
Dunstan’s are Chinese crossed with the one blight resistant American chestnut found, crossed back again with that same chestnut.
This was done with three varieties of chestnut then those 3/4, or 7/8 perhaps, American chestnuts were crossed with each other, all being called Dunstan.
My source: I spoke with Robert Dunstan’s family when I bought my tree.
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BT spray is pretty good, also Japanese beetle traps a 1/2 mile away is a good idea, they attract beetles like crazy.
The full PDF is in the thread. Dunstan’s are 3/4 American.
or more.
(To be honest the PDF is unclear on whether they are 3/4 or 1/4 or random mixes between those numbers, but they are 3/4 or more as verified to me in person)
My source - Genetic testing done by Dr Jeanne Romero-Severson at Notre Dame.
Dunstans are from 90-100% Chinese. The other 10% on one tree was probably EUROPEAN rather than American.
Aside from that, if you look at 100 different Dunstan seedlings you will see no American characteristics at all. None. Leaves are not American, stipules are not American, catkins are not American, nuts are not American, growth habit is not American. They backcrossed to Chinese more than once and forgot to tell anyone. And why would they cross with Chinese anyway when they allegedly had a blight resistant American? Why not cross with other American trees?
Hard to believe that someone selling you something would fudge the facts.
Literally no experts in the chestnut community believe that Dunstans are less than 90% Chinese. Ask TACF if anyone working there believes that Dunstans have any significant American genetics. Ask the chestnut professionals on the TACF Listserv at Penn State what they think of Dunstan trees-
https://lists.psu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TACF-GROWERS&A=1
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Fudge fact #1 GMO’s are safe. Absolutely NO MONETARY MOTIVATION. 
But the Carpenter tree being European or a European cross is believable.
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This topic does not involve GMOs.
Sevin will take care of the rose chafer beetles.
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Sorry, I was wrong it was weatherandtrees who was advocating “bringing back” GMO American chestnuts
Can you tell me a little more about Colossal. Is it such a bad choice? I have just planted two Chinese Chestnuts, and two Colossal Chestnuts. All four trees are seedlings. I was told to plant two varieties for the sake of good polination.
Is this not a good plan? Is so, why? And what would you reccomend.
John in Kentucky
Colossal can be killed by chestnut blight and root rot. You have both in KY.
Colossal seedlings rarely (1 out of 100?) have good quality nuts. They are a complete waste of space unless you are using them for rootstock on the west coast.
If you have two Chinese seedlings they can pollenize each other if they flower at the same time, but they might not. Better to have one more Chinese seedling.
I see, thank you very much for the information!!!
Any reccomendations on who to buy my Chinese seedling from? Good to go back to the same place I bought the others, or better to buy from someone else?
John
Route 9 Coop in Ohio.
Red Fern Farm in Iowa if you’re within driving distance.
Perfect Circle Farm in VT.
These folks-
I bought some chinese chestnut seedlings from Mark Shepard – Forest Agriculture Nursery this year. They are sold out at this point, but the seedlings I got had huge root systems on them and most of them are doing pretty well now. Hazelnut seedlings I got were good as well, for whatever its worth.
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Z’s Nutty Ridge, znutty.com. NY business
Morse Nursery - Battle Creek MI
Both have good service and nice stock
Morse is the nursery that keeps advertising November drop chestnuts which is not a reality outside of zones 8 and 9. Their credibility on chestnut issues is low.
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Interesting opinion
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Thanks everyone!
I have more chestnut related questions.
Can I train/cut to keep these trees from getting too big and yet still get good amounts of fruit/nuts?
Becasue, some of you have mentioned the problem of the nuts getting worms. How do I avoid/treat those when my trees get mature and start producing.
I would like to be pro-active to avoid such big problems early on.
John
Others hav
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I am about to plant colossal seedlings, mostly for deer, but we’ll see how it goes, Bouche de Betizac looks good, you will need one if your Chinese chestnuts are grafted or “pollen sterile”.
Kentucky is the heart of blight zone, so I would expect Chinese hybrids would be best, but pure Japanese cultivars could be best if you’re doing forest planting or want a lumber and nut tree.
Try England’s Orchard for seed, I’m pretty sure they stopped selling trees though, but the variety of scions they have is unbelievable!
Or get seed locally this fall, find a nutgrowers group, or I’ll give you a contact to order seed from, local here zone 5,all Chinese hybrids, this guy is serious too.
Seeds grow fast!
Plant indoors at least in April they could be 3 feet tall by June, do not risk the frost!
BdB and Colossal seedlings will die of blight sooner or later and might die of root rot even before blight gets them.
Burnt Ridge is a great place to buy seednuts or seedlings if you live on the west coast but a waste of time for much of the eastern US, especially Kentucky.
If you’re in Kentucky, why would you not buy seednuts from Cliff England?
“The european nuts pollinated with chinese pollen can rot, that’s true, you may loose 1/3 of the european crop.”
There is no science to support the claim that Chinese trees cause nuts from European trees to rot.
There is one MSU study that showed that one specific cultivar, Colossal, sometimes gets IKB (internal kernal breakdown) when pollenized by one specific Chinese cultivar while growing in Michigan soil. There is no evidence that any other Chinese pollenizer causes IKB in any other European tree. Colossal gets IKB in California where there are no Chinese pollenizers so obviously Chinese pollen is not the big problem for Colossal.
Colossal nuts grown in California with IKB-
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