I grow them, but most go to squirrels and chipmunks. You can run with the Dunston varieties in your zone but there are others with great flavor- be sure to go with grafted named varieties. My favorite here are one of the Dunstons whose name I've forgotten and Sleeping giant. Both have large sweet nuts. The Dunston has lots of American chestnut in its genes but blight resistance.

If you can baffle trees to keep squirrels from going up you can gather them early in the morning before vermin get the chance.

They take a great deal of room.

Greetings:

A friend of mine asked me about growing chestnuts in
SE WI that he can eat? He is very close to Lake MIchigan so his climate is moderated quite a bit.

I am not familiar with what varieties are best for SE WI
nor if they need cross pollination.

Also any sources for purchasing these selections that
have nice stock?

Try Nolin River Nursery. They are my source unless I'm ordering Dunstons.

Harvestman, do you have a source for Dunstans? I ordered a couple from Edible Landscaping a couple years ago, but they only have huge sizes now, and I was thinking about buying a couple more for a friend.

I'm surprised to hear you have squirrel trouble. I read that the burrs were so fierce that squirrels don't bother them until they open/drop which gives you a good chance to beat the squirrels to them.

Spartan, you might also be interested in checking out Oikos' offering of various select seedling chestnuts.

Anyone else grow or collect chestnuts?

Realtree sells dunstan chestnuts. They also sell them to walmart in certain parts of the country, although I have not seen them in my local area. And squirrels will work a chestnut tree by knawing the stem off and dropping them to the ground. This may make them open earier maybe?

Realtree is the same as chestnut hill nursery, apparently. They were my original source 25 years ago when they offered several grafted varieties as well as seedlings. I fail to see the advantage of buying a seedling when other sources such as Nolin River Nursery offer grafted trees that you can be assured of the kind of nuts you'll be harvesting and begin to harvest them in as little as 3 or 4 years.

I would want more info than what the nursery supplies about the relative productivity of these seedling trees. The seedling trees I bought from them certainly bore much later then the one grafted tree I purchased from them. I don't manage any of the seedlings today so I can't offer a comparison of yield from mature seedling trees to my grafted one but my grafted one bears extremely heavy crops of sweet nuts, though not nearly as large as they'd been advertised.

Their story of the Dunston chestnut seems a little suspect as the original tree was supposed to be entirely American and completely immune to blight. Why was this tree not maintained as a variety by way of grafting? That is something they could have sold at a premium price from the get go it they'd kept it pure. A great deal of money and effort has been spent since to develop a blight free American chestnut.

I have 5 chestnut trees in my yard. I watch the squirrels cut the burr off the tree (nuts are still white) and carry the whole burr through the yard and then up a tree where they chew the burr apart to get to the nuts. It doesn't seem to bother them one bit even when bouncing through the yard with it in their mouth.

I have a couple Dunstan not Dunston seedling trees that produce very large nuts reliably. I started them from nuts of the grafted trees I started in Florida in the early 90âÂÂs when I was looking for an alternative when my citrus froze out. I think the reason Chestnut Hill (Bob Wallace) does not do the grafted trees anymore was due to problems with delayed graft incompatibility, but you could call them and ask him. I put in a 100 grafted trees of several cultivars. Revival was the one they made the biggest deal about back then, I think some of the others where Willamette, Alachua, Carolina. Maybe I got lucky with the couple seedling I kept, but they are notably better the seedling trees of about the same age I got from defunct Bear Creek Nursery back then. Unless you have a lot of space to grow things out you are better off with grafted, but I think more seedling Chestnuts turnout well relative to some nut tree seedlings.

Stru, I got trees from Chestnut Hill and Bear Creek at around the same time and the Bear Creek trees never have produced much either. I think I have the Willamette variety as the name rings a bell. They didn't think it would likely survive up here and suggested I stick with seedlings but their fear at that time was about colder weather. I just kept removing the nuts until I thought the tree was strong enough to bare and make it through the winter and the tree is thriving all these years later.

However, there are other tested and productive chestnuts I've planted since and Nolin River nursery is a good source of several good varieties with large, sweet nuts,

Here the squirrels don't usually break off the burrs except when there are no acorns- they wait for the nuts to drop or at least till they are ripe and can be pulled free up in the tree 3 out of 4 years, I'd say. When they are very hungry they will strip them from the burrs and eat them when they are still bitter.

I'm told you can dig shallow holes under the trees and cover with leaves and the squirrels will harvest the nuts for you and put them there.

Harvestman,

I agree that grafted is worth it over seedlings, particularly on nut trees. Chestnuts are pretty quick to bear, but at the same time from Bear Creek I got some Heartnuts, Butternuts, and Northern Pecan seedlings They all grew well but most have still not produced nuts. The chestnuts have been bearing for years, and one of the butternuts puts out some inferior nuts. The Heartnuts and the Butternuts the last couple years have had lots of catkins so I hope I am close, but from the mid-late 90s is a long time to invest in nut that's likely inferior. I have never lived at the property to care for them, and while chestnuts bear pretty young, the only way I would plant seedling of the others again would be a woodland conservation type planting.

Below is one of my Dunstan I picked up the last past weekend. I had not made it up there this season and the ground was covered by empty husks, I managed to find a few stragglers, The tree rats, deer, bear, turkey, crows all love them. It sets a lot of singles and doubles so pretty good sized. I think when I weighed a few one year they were below 20/LB which is pretty favorable to most named grafted trees. This tree is early the other is later and probably sets more pounds, but lots of triples.

This post was edited by strudeldog on Thu, Oct 3, 13 at 22:21

I planted two at my previous place. As SD says, one started bearing in the second year, the other in its sixth year. They were from Edible Landscaping, chinese hybrids, and I was pleasantly surprised by the flavor (sweet) and texture (flaky). Strong trees with no problems, no need for irrigation, really an ideal nut tee to have.

The trees grew well. I was able to keep squirrels out by meticulously picking all burrs when they were showing just a crack. No burr ever opened. I would then open them myself. The squirrels never learned that there were nuts on those trees while I was there. I would then store them in a hardware cloth lined box in the crawlspace. In moist sand at about 35-38F, they last until... I don't know, but for sure until January. They were always eaten by then.

I also tried (many times) to plant disease resistant crosses from the ACCF (?), away from the house where there was space. I was a ACCF member for years. The deer ate them all, every year anywhere from 25 to 50+.

Burnt Ridge in Onalaska WA also has a good selection.
John S
PDX OR

Strudel, you make a very good case for Dunston seedlings. Thanks for the info.

How big are your hands?

Joking.

Ha,
I am not sure I wear Extra Large glove, but I do wear a size 13 shoe. I guess I should have put a quarter in for reference. I don't know the Dunstan not Dunston are any better than other selections, but in general I think seedling chestnut will more likely turn out at least ok, compared to say a pecan or a butternut and most nuts. The one seedling butternut I have that has put out nuts contain very little meat. The Dunstan I don't believe carry a very high percentage of American Castanea Dentata genes. The leaves, nuts and tree form are pretty much Asian from my view. The tree form is probably a little more upright than some Asian but not the timber form that I associate with American. I know a couple local existing American trees that have struggled along as mostly suckers re-sprouting from an old base, so maybe my perception is off on what an American would look like as it is based mainly on pictures. The leaf of at least my Dunstan have the hairy/fuzzyness on the underside of the leaf and the leaf shape of an Asian as opposed to the slick underside of American. I have not kept up with the ACF in recent years, but hope their efforts are successful in as close to Castanea Dentata as possible, but if you are really interested in managing trees for nuts you are probably better off with Asian or a Hybrid with significant Asian genes.

This post was edited by strudeldog on Fri, Oct 4, 13 at 9:23

There's a farmer that used to have a farm store next to my sisters veterinary clinic in Arcata CA just above Eureka that has a stand of native chestnuts and I've purchase the nuts from him years past, Nice, sweet nuts.

My recollection is that Chestnut Hill used to brag up their trees as being majority native but I agree with you that the from is not very upright of the trees I've watched grow.

I have also been thinking of planting chestnuts, since the hybrid programs seem to have reached a good level of maturity. I was starting to lean toward Badgersett. But I would be interested in hearing if anyone has experience with the Badgersett hybrids. I am in the upper-Midwest so I need a cold hearty tree.

Here is a link that might be useful: Badgersett link