I am taking the day off from hunting to go to the chestnut foundation farms open house in Meadowview, VA. They say deer prefer chestnuts to oaks 100 to 1. I am trying to get some chestnut trees to grow on the farm and hoping to get some insight.
Look up the American Chestnut history and story. Good conservation. Tim in NC
I have a handful on my property in UP MI, but they are tiny and although they are growing, they are not growing very fast. Combination of crappy soil and me not living on site to water and care for them I guess.
ChuckC
The chestnut blight was one of the worst environmental disasters to ever hit this country & all in the name of greed.
I ordered and planted 10 Am.chestnut hybrids about 15 years ago. I planted them in a nursery bed to raise them up for a few years but that winter voles ate the roots off of them and killed them all.
I'd like to plant more. I did find an Am. chestnut in full bloom on the Blue Ridge Parkway last spring. It is the only one I have ever seen. There is a native stand of Am. chestnuts growing in Pine Mountain GA. that are eing used to develop the newest hybrids.
Before the chestnut blight chestnut trees comprised 40% to 70% of the tree canopy in the Eastern US. They said that beard and deer were 100# heavier back then because the chestnuts were a more reliable foor ource for wildlife...and humans.
When you find a chestnut in the right spot, it will have no offspring, the deer make certain of that. I have yet to find a chestnut that was away from the roads that was not a hub for the deer when the nuts were dropping, although I have seen wild apple trees get ignored.
I planted a couple of hybrid chestnut trees about 6-7 years ago. For thelast two years there were only immature nuts on the trees, but this year it looked different. One tree had several hundred burrs on it and things looked promising. However, again the burrs only contained immature nuts excepted for one good healthy nut. A call to the nursery confirmed what I suspected, it is a pollination problem. Now I'll plant another couple of trees and wait.
When the immature nuts started to fall a couple of weeks ago there was a doe and her two fawns that checked them out. Indications were that these deer were very interested in this chestnut tree. Supposedly chestnuts were the main mast crop for deer for thousands of years. It was also an important food item for Native Americans. It's very high in nutrients.
Pat B, don't let the voils get the best of you. Edible Landscape Nursery near Stanton, Va. Is having their Persimmon Festival on the 26th of October. That's a chance to enjoy and learn at their wonderful nursery. They also are discounting their prices for this event. I hope to pick up at least two hybrid chestnut trees at this event and maybe get to eat some chestnuts and persimmons.
I want some Chestnut trees.
YUM!
deer love mine, and they set nuts in two yrs here, and tolerate bogg soils and require little to no care, I know of a supplier for outdoors men, called nativnursiers.com.
I plan to buy a few and plant them at our gun club. They allow bow hunting there and we have several large fields in the sporting clays area where I'd like to put them.
Also check out Morse Nursery, Battle Creek MI. They do things a bit different and I have found their stock to be very good. They ship specially rooted stock, not bare root.
ChuckC
Chestnuts are the way to go. Deer love them even more than acorns. They grow fast and can start producing in as little as two years! Also from a conservation standpoint since the American Chestnut was virtually wiped out it's great a great thing to be able to help reintroduce this tree. I will be planting them when and where I am able.
It was worth the trip, Dr Fred Hebard gave us a tour of the research farm and discussed the back cross breeding program. They raffled of two pairs of the 15/16 blight resistant trees of and I was fortunate enough to win one of the pair. I had to sign an agreement not to sell the offspring of the trees to report how the trees are doing yearly. These seedlings will be the first crop to start a possible reforestation effort. Below is pictures of the day. The dunstan chestnut sold by real tree nursery is a blight resistant Chinese/ American hybrid with Chinese characteristics. Because they are shorter, they will get shaded out in a mature forest because everything is taller and will die out in a timber stand. They would be great in a orchard setting or around the edge of fields where they can get some sunlight. Well, I have to pick two spots in my pasture with protection to plant these valuable seedlings. Short tree tubes and heavy wire baskets I am guessing will work.
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Y'all are inspirational, what a great conservation project - with bowhunting possibilities!
American chestnuts are a powerhouse of nutrition and sweet besides so it doesn't surprise me that deer or any other critter would take to them.
To me they taste sorta like sweet potatoes. We cook with 'em and yes, we roast a few around Christmas time to share with folks that have never had one.
God bless Dr. Hebard and the crew there in Va. I gotta believe eventually they'll lick the blight problem and what a day that'll be!
AJ
Very interesting topic. I would like to find out more. Do they do well down the hill just a bit, like say, the western Piedmont area? Do they like creek bottoms, or hill tops? Our soil is a mix of sandrock and red dirt, ya think it would be suitable?
Thanks
Walmart will begin selling the crossed Chestnut this coming spring. I'm going to plant a half dozen in my backyard near the woods.
I planted two swamp white oaks about 2 weeks ago.
You can find out more on this site, home range, science,etc.
www.acf.org/ (http://www.acf.org/)
You can help if you know where an original tree is. Dr Fred said that only about 20 out of Billions survived and appear to be blight resistant. You might have one per county. I know of one tree in Ashe County.
Keep your eyes open for burrs while bow hunting. You can see American characteristics on the website above.
I've been a member of ACF for the past few years, ever since I learned the story of the blight.
It's really not possible to overestimate the economic and cultural damage that was done to our country by this foreign invader.
Didn't know about the trees being available at Walmart - that's great. If the chestnut is ever going to make even a minor comeback we'll have to get them into as many hands as possible.
What is the growing range of these trees? Could not find a map, and I have never talked to anyone who found one in Central Illinois.
Lots of good info at ACF and elsewhere on the range but at a macro scale it's estimated that there were over 4 billion mature chestnut trees at the beginning of the 20th century ranging from Georgia to Maine and west to Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. By 1950 99%+ were gone.
That said, chestnuts are growing well today in Wisconsin and many other locations outside their original range. They tend to like slightly acidic soil and traditionally were found along and below ridge lines, as opposed to bottomland. There are always exceptions and in fact the mother trees that are out there today possibly were spared because they grew apart from their sisters.
Unfortunately for me, at 8,000', Chestnuts will never grow on my property but I take joy in the fact that they're growing and eventually will thrive in my native Virginia.
For more great reading, check out 'Mighty Giants' and 'American Chestnut: The Life, Death and Rebirth of the Perfect Tree'...both available at ACF.org or Amazon, etc.
Interesting! I have a few old growth roots or stumps on my wood lot property. So I like to read about this. When we built the house they must have been disturbed and with sunlight growth was triggered. They get about 6'-8' tall and die. Also a few years ago I discovered one just below the house by the creek in a mature wooded area. It was about 8"-10" across and 30' tall and straight! I was a real American Chestnut. No limbs or leaves for the first 15'. I only discovered it because I noticed a tree with dead leaves. I had found it in it's last year of life. I cut the tree that winter and hauled the small log to the house. Not sure what to do with it. In chance conversation with a turkey call maker at a sports show, I mentioned the log. He was there the next morning at 6:00 to haul it away for call making. He sent me a call.
Tedd
Also near our camp in Lycoming County PA I have been noticing a few back roads that have shrubby chestnut trees along the sides of the road. the trees look kind of weak and never get too tall. They get a small chestnut. Not like the big chinese type. Those must have been disturbed by road construction over the years and somehow the light and disturbance makes the old roots grow?? I just wonder what that looked liked before the blight and loggers. It must have been a hot spot for indians to hunt in the fall.
I planted 4 chinese chestnut hybrids about 20 yrs ago in a open area at my house. They are now 30' high and get a lot of chestnuts. The area is more secluded now and deer really come to them to eat. I just killed a doe that was eating them. Now I intend to plant some more.
We have the remnants(old stumps) of the original American chestnuts trees here on our property in the southern Appalacian Mountains of western North Carolina. Even 100+ years after the blight some of these stumps still have sucker growth, although they are short lived. When these suckers reach 1" to 2" in diameter the bark will errupt in leasions that will kill them eventually. The blight is an airborn fungi that kills the top growth but not the roots.
Invasive exotics, like the chestnut blight, kudsu, Japanese honeysuckle and many landscape plants and many animals are of our own doing. The chestnut blight came in on a shipment of chestnut lumber from China in the early 1900s.
Our newest "blight" here in our beautiful mountains is the Hemlock wholly adelgid which is killing all of our wild grown Canadian and Carolina hemlocks, changing the face of our woods forever.
I hope the project of reforestation for your native chestnut can be successful because here in Europe those trees are part of our culture and economy.
Chestnut trees make some really good wood for contructions,flooring and carpentery; they make excellent fruits that are the best choice for game animal as well for man.
We have thousands of recepies with them,I just hate my rosted nuts.
Chestnuts are the main winter food source for wild boar and deer and when they start to fall wild games have no interested to other sources.
There is one growing at the scout camp we frequent. It's showing some strain. Finding it may save that entire area of camp from being re-purposed. They are looking for more now etc... Really cool to show the boys one of these trees...
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Tedd, that is how a true American chestnut is suppose to grow, big straight and tall. I would of made a riser from the wood. We also have old stumps that grows shoots then dies. The mast that these trees produce use to feed livestock. Imagine how much food it could produce for the deer, bear and turkeys. I
will find the home range for you, hawk eye.
Here ya go
http://www.acf.org/range_close.php
Interesting you should post this. Just yesterday while out stalking around, I put some chestnuts in my pocket (out of the needley shell, of course). I plan on planting them out back.
a sugestion, my trees dump so many nuts that i think you only need two to start, you should get anough seeds from them in three yrs to do what you want.
I like to start nut trees from the nuts I pick up or friends give me.
I have mostly Hickory and oaks that I have done. Would love to get my hand on some Chestnuts to try and grow. My wife says I have a obsession with this "hobby".
The American Chestnut is a tree that needs our help and will look for them at Walmart sales next year if I can not find some nuts to start.
Tim, the trees that Walmart offers is a cross between a Chinese and an American. I do not know the percentage, but I would say 50/50. The American that the foundation is producing is 15/16 American by back crossing from the 20 some original trees that survived the blight.
QuoteOriginally posted by The Night Stalker:
Here ya go
http://www.acf.org/range_close.php
Thanks! For some reason, I just couldn't find that.
Looks like Illinois is probably not the place to try to grow some.
The hybrids are called Dunstan chestnuts and are a Chinese American hybrid. They resist blight but give nuts like American chestnuts
Just make sure you plant enough to get good pollination and you'll be in business
Here ya go Hawk Eye for Illinois
Ray is correct. This farm grew several dunstan in Pike County, Illinois. If you buy the nuts, you can germinate them in the refrigerator and plant them. The deer love them.
http://www.chestnutridgeofpikecounty.com
I can send you instructions for germination, planting, etc
They sell seeds I just noticed as well. I'm going to give it a shot!!
http://www.chestnutridgeofpikecounty.com/chseforpl.html
I've even heard of a few guys here in Texas planting chestnuts. Sounds like a winner.
We'll I need to get some seeds. Do you refrigerate in a holed plastic bag than scrape outside with file soak and plant like other nut variety?
Now THAT is a neat idea! Thanks for bringing up the possibility.
This could make for a real enhancement to my traditional bowhunting on this ol' home place (some years from now!)
If you buy seeds ask the seller for proper treatment to break dormancy and how and when to plant for your area.
Thanks all for the education. Being a Texan I don't have any history with this tree. Sad tale. I wonder if I can get some established on my place in far NE Texas?
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Chestnuts are easy to start from seed once you have a source. Empire Chestnut Company has a link on their webpage for ordering seed.
Last year I got 5lbs of seeds which I stored in the crisper section of the refrigerator (NOT with apples!) in large zip lock bags with a damp paper towel, opening the bags once a month to "air" the bag and check the dampness of the towel. You want them damp but not wet. In the spring I put one chestnut each in Rootmaker 1 gallon grow pots. When they sprout I just set the pots around the sprinkler pattern of the house garden so they are easy to keep watered.
The year before I had tried a source of American Chestnuts but the hybrids are 3-4x the size and the hybrid vigor clearly shows through plus they are blight resistant.
Terra Tech is a good source for low cost tree guards which you will want to use to protect your seedlings when you put them out. The 18" size works great. I think I paid $84 for 250 guards shipped to me.
Thanks Tom. I appreciate the information. I am really looking forward to this project. I firmly believe us as hunters and outdoorsmen should do everything possible to help with things of this nature.
Great thread Night Stalker. I've been following the AC saga for 10 years or so and was thrilled to read about the back crossing that produced a 15/16 tree. Amazing science. Once they are available we are going to get some to plant on our archery clubs property to help the species.
John, I'm fortunate to live just a few miles from the University of Missouri Center for Agroforestry which has a good chestnut project going, they also have a field day each year and I got a lot of good information from them when I attended last year.
http://www.centerforagroforestry.org/pubs/chestnutpubs.php