First year growth can be anywhere from 6 inches to 7 feet, depending on genetics, soil, and climate.
These are first year -
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I’ll link a video on a method from EdibleAcres, he plants most of his tree nuts in his “air prune planters” Air Prune Boxes - Version 2 - INCREDIBLE tree growing system - YouTube
Idea is, to guard against rodents, squirrels etc, and to cage around the chestnuts before they have set up shoots. Previous videos from EdibleAcres they talk about how chestnuts wake up relatively early - in a basement environment covered in moist sawdust.
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Wow that’s awesome!! So you did cold stratification outdoors or in a refrigerator? Looking to try and do chestnuts for the first time!
Chestnuts need very little cold stratification. If you put them in the refrigerator in October, they’re ready to plant by January. If you’re in zone 9 or even the warmer parts of zone 8 you can plant them out in February or March. If you’re in a colder area, just put them in a greenhouse at that time.
here is a link to a photo I posted of seeds I grew last spring. This shot was taken in October. Next spring I’ll separate the plants and put some in the ground, but I’ll also have some available if people here are interested.
What did you learn in 2022 about growing vegetables or fruit? - #29 by Ged
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We’re these grown this year? Did you need to graft onto them?
I did not grow those. Someone else did last year. I assume they will wait and see whether the nut quality is good before deciding to graft them.
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In most areas, squirrels are not the only problem. Rats, mice and especially voles will eat outdoor nuts. You need very small netting to stop voles, like this:
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You’re not burying the nut. Interesting. It hadn’t occurred to me to do this. I have chestnuts in the fridge waiting for my 2nd seed bed to be finished. Thanks for the pictures.
Most tree seed are perfectly happy to germinate laying on the surface of the soil. The only problem I’ve seen is that seedlings may not be strong enough to stand up to strong wind.
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I did cold stratification with about 25 chestnuts. Only 1 is starting to show signs of life after about 2.5 weeks. A few have some mold on them and a few just are not sending out and type of roots. After how long should I consider those that are not growing any a failure?
I started a bunch of chestnuts in containers a few months ago with several just now germinating. I would give them at least 3 months!
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If they were left outside, the soil temperature may be too cold. I stratified a bunch of Chinese chestnuts in the fall and then planted them into 8" Stuewe pots in early January in cold frames and styrofoam coolers. Almost all the cold frame pots have germinated. No sign of life yet for the styrofoam pots.
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Did you strafy them in your refrigerator? And did you use moist peat moss?
No, just in a closed Ziploc bag. Less likely to go moldy.
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Hello ! The best of driving out animals is by electric pulse generator. Here in D you can buy an 800 V pulse generator, connect it to a 12V= and put one string in the earth, the other 800 V string must be connected with an isolated metal net covering the plantingbox. No squirrel will touch that net a second time, that´s sure.You can use that generator also against slugs, scunks etc.
So nothing in the bag just chestnuts? I have to try this because I did have a few Chestnuts have mold on them when I pulled them out of stratification.
I had great results stratifying castanea henryi seeds in a bucket filled with damp bricklayers sand which I placed in a cool cellar (the temps were above 0C and below 5C). They went into stratification in January and by February roots were emerging in approx. 90% of seeds. The bucket had no drainage holes and I simply covered the top layer of sand with a plastic bag.
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