Looking for Chestnut Seed sources

General Fruit Growing
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I am looking for Chestnut seed sources for a couple different types of crosses. If I have to get seedlings, I’m still interested, but I have to be very careful getting bare root because I’m not always in a position to plant large numbers immediately.

  1. American chestnut (dentata) x Chinese chestnut (mollissima) where the mollissima parent is a good nut tree. Also would accept seedlings from a dentata x mollissima cultivar if they come from a good nut quality mollissima pollen cloud. Ideally, the mollissima would be hardy in zone five or colder since the trees will be raised in Wisconsin.

  2. Seeds from a good North Italian Marrone type, perferably sativa rather than sativa x crenata crossed with a cold hardy mollissima parent. I don’t know a lot about the Marrone type and hardiness. What I do know is I have a number of friends who have been to Europe and really like roasted chestnuts from Northern Italy. Again, if there is a good cultivar of this type, I would be interested in seed nuts coming from a mollissima pollen cloud.

I am in Wisconsin. Blight is infrequent here, but I must respect the possibility. I have a couple 50 year old dentata on the property and a number of younger, bearing nut type Castanea trees of various and/or unknown sources. Most of what I am currently planting is Route 9 and Badgersett. I am familiar with cultivar Ace and I believe I have a 2025 source. Any leads on high quality sources for the above trees would be much appreciated.

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check out perfect circle farm in V.T. Grimo nut farm in in Ont. Canada is another good one. welcome to the forum.

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A possible source might be mountainstatechestnuts.com. They used to sell nuts, no trees. The web site could use an upgrade. The co-owner of this enterprise is a dentist in Davis, West Virginia. Pretty good info on his web site. It may even give you a few more ideas. This fellow was one of the few that I found who had some info available about what he had done and what the results were. I have some trees from his nut source. Nuts went through cold stratification in the refrigerator, put in pots for sprouting, out planted with tree tubes in 2019. One tree has a couple of seed balls (burrs?) this year. They’re still green. Don’t know if they’re filled nuts or not.

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Mountain Gentry Chestnuts @ Olive Hill KY

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Thanks. Grimo has some interesting material, but they don’t ship Chestnuts to the US. Some of those hazels, though, almost ended in my cart. I’ll explore the others.

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