Not long ago, the chestnut was one of the most dominant trees in eastern forests. They grew to the height of redwoods and dropped nuts by the trainload. Unfortunately, almost all the American chestnuts were wiped out by a disease around 100 years ago.
Since that time, much work has gone into hybridizing American, Chinese, European, and Japanese chestnut genetics to create trees that are disease resistant and can grow in colder climates. Today is the best time in history to be planting chestnuts.
The nuts are an amazing source of food for the homestead. They are rich in carbohydrates, more similar to corn than to the more oily and protein rich nuts like hazelnuts and hickories. They are reliable producers because the flowers emerge in early summer, usually the first week of July here in Utica, so they have very little risk of losing flowers to cold temps.
Chestnut Varieties For This Season:
Both of the varieties available this year are from Rusty Russel’s orchard near Ithaca, NY. He is growing a huge selection of the best Chinese seedling lineages available today. Chinese chestnuts are widely considered to be some of the best trees for fresh eating nuts, and they also have more of an arching orchard friendly form. Starfish was so named for its “starfish-shaped, open bur”. But besides that expect exceptional trees from exceptional parentage with either choice.
Hybrid Chestnuts – The other selections are great trees as well, they come from a long standing hardy chestnut orchard with a mix of genetics: Chinese, Japanese, American, European, both seedlings and grafted cultivars.
Growth Parameters:
Plant at least two seedlings for cross-pollination to get a nut crop.
Chestnuts will drink a lot of water, however the soil around the roots must be well drained for them to be happy. If the soil is not naturally well drained, build a mound with the excess dirt from digging a hole, then plant the tree on the mound. The hole can then serve to collect extra water for the tree while the extra height from the mound will help with drainage.
Chestnuts will be large trees, with most orchard types being wide trees.
