How to Grow a Chestnut Orchard: Part II: Selecting Chestnut Varieties to Grow

Here in episode two we're going to talk about picking a chestnut variety to grow in your orchard and you probably should do more than one variety depending on whether or not they produce pollen that is sterile or fertile. Some trees don't produce any pollen that works. Some require, many require, other trees, at least other trees of the same variety, some require a different variety to get them to pollinate well because of the timing that they bloom and so forth. You got to pick the cold hardiness depending on where you're at. You got to pick an area that has the right soil concentration so you got different trees that do a little better with that and then you got to look at what type of nuts do you want. Are they easily peeling? Some have a husk that just won't peel and you end up having to cut. Those aren't favored by people that want to buy those and eat them. They may be fine if you want to grow them and they may have great taste but if they don't peel well people won't like them. Another option would be that you have to look at is do they suffer from internal kernel breakdown? Some can have a little breakdown in the middle of the nut and we'll show you some examples of that. Does your tree produce or have a propensity to produce multiple embryos? So you get a nut, you open it up and it's got two or three little pieces as opposed to one big full nut. So there's multiple varieties that you can look at. We're not going to discuss every variety that's available. We're going to have a focus primarily on the northeast but they'll probably work on the entire eastern side of the U.S. Some of them would work fine in California where blight is less of a problem. But the big key to look at is are they blight resistant or not? Do they have cold hardiness and do they suffer from phytophthora root rot? Those are three big things. Blight resistance, do they suffer from root rot and can they handle the cold weather? Those are the keys that you have to look at and then you can look at all the different little things and you may end up just having to trial and error which is what I'm doing at my orchard. I believe I have 13 different varieties at my orchard. So before we get going I want to thank Dr. Hill Craddock and Mr. James Nave for their very gracious allowing me to use some of the photos that they have of trees, blossoms, and their nuts. If I couldn't have used those chestnut pictures I would not have a full video here. I only have a few varieties of mine that are producing. I had eight varieties produced but their nuts, you know, it's our first set of nuts it's not the ideal. So I want to thank you very much to both of you for allowing me to use those pictures so that I can help spread some education to the community here and hopefully grow something. So with that we're going to jump off into round two, episode two, picking a chestnut variety right for your orchard. Today we're going to focus on four main types of chestnuts. The Chinese chestnut which is Castanea mollissima is generally very blight resistant, fairly cold hardy, and has a very sweet tasting nut. Whereas Japanese chestnuts also have some degree of cold hardiness, have very large chestnuts, and are fairly good tasting as well. They also have blight resistance. The American chestnut as we all know suffers mightily from blight. It does have very good cold hardiness, has small nuts that are very sweet, very good tasting. And then finally we have the European chestnut Castanea sativa which is a good tasting nut, does not have good blight resistance, and has fair cold hardiness. You also need to consider problems certain chestnuts can have. Some of these are internal kernel breakdown which is a rotting ugly nut. Certain chestnuts such as Colossal are known to have this problem. Some chestnuts also don't peel very easily. An absolute major problem for eastern U.S. growers is Cryphonectria parasitica which is the chestnut blight which kills everything above it. You can get a sprout there on the side as you can see in the picture but it can kill to the roots. Also Phytophthora root rot is a problem in the southeastern U.S. And finally I want to say bigger is not always better. You will see some awesome huge pictures but that doesn't mean it's right if you're doing an orchard. Sometimes these things have problems with multiple embryos, not peeling well, or not dropping at a good enough time that you would be able to successfully run an orchard with them. So try to come up with a medium between nice size and great taste. So let's get right to it and start looking at some chestnuts. Buche de Berzac is a cross between European and Japanese chestnut. It's one of the most popular ones grown in French chestnut grows because it's highly productive. It has pretty good blight for this type of variety. It is pollen sterile and it's less susceptible to gall wasp. It is however very sensitive to early frost. Colossal is also a sativa crossed with crenata. It is fairly cold hardy. It's been cold hardy to minus 20. These are grown significantly so in Michigan by the Michigan chestnut growers. It has a fair tasting nut and it is subject to internal kernel breakdown. It's also susceptible to late spring frost so you have to be a little careful with that if you're subject to getting a late frost. But overall this is very popularly grown in Michigan and has fair blight resistance. On to Dunstan. Dunstan is a very well-known variety. This is not a specific cultivar. These are seedlings of a cross between Chinese and American chestnuts. They do have fairly good production. They are pretty good tasting nuts as well. They have good blight resistance and they're cold hardy. I have these Dunstans that have tolerated up to minus 18 at my own orchard. This is a four-year-old seedling tree that I bought from Chestnut Hill that you're seeing here. These are very popular. They really promote their American heritage. However, their habit is much more Chinese looking than American. They are fairly vigorous growing. Their nuts are very good tasting and I've used these to grow seedlings in my own orchard. Imalens Purple is a pure Chinese chestnut. It produces very large tasty nuts per Mr. Knave. This is a newer tree that has less research but has great promise. It drops nuts in early mid-season. Next up we have Gideon. This is a pure Chinese chestnut tree. It's cold hardy and drought tolerant. It produces a quality large to extra large nut. It's one of fastest growing trees in a nursery and I grow these in my own orchard. So this tree is tree B14. It's a Gideon. It's a Chinese chestnut I got from Mr. Greg Miller. I don't know a lot about its genetics except that it's cold hardy and it grows pretty fast. You can see that it's putting out quite a few blossoms this year. This will be its fourth year of growing in this orchard and its fifth year of growing overall. I bought it as a one-year bare root seedling. But you can see it's finally out of the tube and starting to look like a tree. It's starting to branch out and it's branching out just above six feet where I want it to be branching so that I can mow underneath it. Beautiful tree. Next up is Gillette. This is a complex hybrid. It's a combination of a European and Japanese tree. It's a seedling. The nuts drop mid-season. It is extremely cold hardy. It has survived a temperature in Michigan without damage. This tree is grown in Michigan and has not had significant damage which indicates it does have some blight resistance. Next up is Jenny. This is a tree introduced by Mr. Nave. This is a vigorous tall tree. Has very erect growth pattern. Has unusually large leaves. It doesn't have the orchard type growth pattern of a typical Chinese chestnut tree. It's very vigorous and tall. The nuts are very large and good eating which most Chinese chestnuts are. All the nuts usually start dropping early in the season and pretty much all at the same time. Here we have Laval's Monster. Very big nuts. It's a Chinese hybrid. It's based out of Illinois is where it came from. It has high quality nuts. They drop very early. The problem as you can see is the nuts can split which makes them not an ideal orchard tree but if you're going to grow them personally they can be a very good tasting nut that would be very satisfying to grow. Here we have Patterson Blossoms. This is a Chinese chestnut tree. Produces large sweet nuts. They drop mid-season. It's a young tree where it's being tested in Missouri so we don't have all the formal findings on this but from Dr. Craddock and Mr. Nath that's the information I have. Next up we have Pain which is also a pure Chinese chestnut tree. Produces large nuts that drop mid-season and the University of Missouri is also doing research on this and can provide as a seed resource if you're interested in this tree. Here we have Qing or Xing. I'm not exactly how you pronounce this. It sounds very different when I look at the Chinese pronunciation on Google Translate but anyway Q-I-N-G. This is a pure Chinese chestnut tree. Produces medium to large very sweet nuts that drop early to mid-season. Many seedling trees produce good producing sweet nut producing trees and I have this in my own orchard. This is a Japanese Chinese hybrid. Has very large nuts that drop mid-season. If you can't find a seed source you can get a grafted tree from Forest Keeling Nursery and grow your own seed nuts. Here we have Xing. This is a pure Chinese chestnut that produces very good nuts. Has an erect habitat. Grows very well. Would be a good addition to most orchards. Being that it's Chinese you would expect it has great blight resistance that it would have a relatively sweet nut. I do have an example of this growing in my own orchard. Planted in the same year I started most of these seedlings. This is seedling chestnut from Empire Chestnuts as well. This is a 12 foot tree. Lots of blooms forming. Nice solid tree. Next up we have S-Zigo. Zigo however you want to pronounce that. It's a Chinese hybrid. It's cold hardy. Has large high quality nuts. This is a complex hybrid that kind of has characteristics of a lot of different chestnuts. But it's easy peeling. Very dense like a Chinese chestnut. Sweet and flavorful and they drop mid-season. They store very well and the tree's resistant to Phytophthora root rot and has some blight resistance but not really certain exactly how resistant it is. Next up is the WC. It's named for WC Donahoe of Louisville, Kentucky. It produces large dark nuts that are sweet that store well. Medium to large size. Drop mid-season. Given that it's Chinese it would be expected to have great blight resistance. Good cold hardiness and maybe have good seedlings that produce from it. Here we have Yixing Good Flavor. I'm probably butchering that name. The Chinese pronunciation sounds nothing like what it's spelled. In any way it's a pure Chinese chestnut. Has very large nuts. It's grown from the area of Yixing, China. I'm definitely messing that up. But good blight resistance cold hardiness produces very large tasty nuts. This is tree in row A5. I don't know you want to try pronouncing I'm sure whatever I'm saying is wrong. This tree is a 2015 seedling grown from Chestnut Ridge. I'm sorry Empire Chestnuts. Has kind of a two trunk thing going on here. Very pretty and rubbing a little there as you can see against the tree stake. You know thicker than my thumb on the main stem and has a few burrs. This tree the mother tree which is the Yixing is pure Chinese and has pretty large nuts. Thanks to Mr. James Nave for giving me that information. Obviously there's a ton of chestnuts and this is just scratching the surface but here's one that's tiger striped. Tora curry. That's an interesting chestnut that I thought you guys would like to see. Also there's a Yixing orange. It's a very orange colored nut. So do some research. Find some information. Find someone that knows a lot. Join a Facebook page. All About Chestnuts is a great website. I'll paste that in the show notes so you can follow that and maybe join that page and learn a lot more about chestnuts. Find some that are blight resistant. If I top through a root resistant and start making a list of chestnuts then it's just you. And I'd previously stated I have 13 varieties. I actually have 12 different varieties that are orchard currently. All of them seem to be doing fairly well and in the next couple years I'll be able to give a better recommendation on what has worked well for me in northwestern Pennsylvania. In the future I'm considering some of these. Some are ones I'm already growing and others are ones that are new to me. They are recommendations from Mr. Knave. Wraps up episode two. Different chestnut varieties. We've covered a few not all. Hopefully you've enjoyed looking at the different varieties and getting some ideas for what you'd like to grow in your area. Join me next time when we get on episode three of this how to grow a chestnut orchard and we'll discuss should you grow seeds, seedlings, should you purchase seedlings, should you grow them yourself, should you buy grafted varieties. Will that do well in your area? So we'll discuss all of those things and we'll head on with the part three of our series selecting your chestnuts. Thanks for watching. Be sure to like and subscribe. Keep following me here at Lake Erie Chestnuts.