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

[Music] in Episode two we're gonna 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 different variety to get them to pollinate well because of the timing that they bloom and so forth you had to pick the cold hardiness depending on where you're at you got to pick an area it 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 a 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 a great taste but if they don't peel well people don't like them another option would be but you have to look at this 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 our propensity to preusse 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 gonna discuss every variety that's available we're gonna have a focus primarily on the Northeast but they'll probably work on the entire eastern side of the US some of them would work fine in California where white 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 look at and then you can look at all the different little things and you may end up just having a 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 they're 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 ahead eight varieties produce but they're 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 gonna jump off into round 2 episode 2 picking a chestnut variety right for your orchard today we're gonna focus on four main types of chestnuts the Chinese chestnut which is kiss Taniya moly Simha 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 test aeneas saturda 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 clonal breakdown which is a rotting ugly nut certain chestnuts such as colossal are known to have this problem some chestnuts also don't feel very easily an absolute major problem for eastern us growers is cry for nectar at parasitical 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 southeast from us 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 Bush debelzaq 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 light rose itza 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 side of a crust with Crenna it is fairly cold hardy it's been cold hardy to -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 Dunston Dunston 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 American these Dunstan's 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 [Music] emmalin's purple is a pure Chinese chestnut 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 midseason next up we have Gideon this is a pure Chinese chestnut tree it's cold hardy and drought tolerant produces a quality large to extra large nut it's one of the fastest growing trees in a nursery and I grow these in my own orchard this tree is tree b14 it's a Gideon two 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 fourth year of growing in this orchard and its fifth year 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 [Music] 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 minus 27 degree 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. knave 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 the vols monster very big nuts it's a Chinese hybrid it's based out of Illinois is where it came from as high quality knots they dropped 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 gonna grow them personally they can be a very good tasting nut that would be very satisfying to grow here we have Paterson blossoms this is a Chinese chestnut tree produces large sweet nuts they drop mid season it's a young tree it where it's being tested in Missouri so we don't have all the formal findings on this but from dr. Craddock and mr. nades that's the information I have next up we have pain which is also a pure Chinese chestnut tree produces large nuts that drop midseason 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 [Music] here we have king or Shing I'm not exactly how you pronounce this it sounds very different when I look at the Chinese pronunciation on Google Translate but anyway Qi ng 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 now we get into the shins the Qi ng variety [Music] here we have SLAR bomb 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 for stealing nursery and grow your own seed nuts here we have Shing this is that pure Chinese chestnut that produces very good nuts has an erect habitat grows very well would be a good addition to most orchards the 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 all most of these seedlings this is seedling chestnut from Empire chestnuts as well this is a 12-foot tree lots of nice solid tree next up we have SZ go Z go 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 trees resistant to fight tops or 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 Louisville Kentucky it produces large dark nuts that are sweet store well medium to large-sized drop mid season given that a Chinese that would be expected to have great light resistance good cold hardiness and maybe have good seedlings that produce from it here we have your cane good flavor I'm probably butchering that name the Chinese pronunciation sounds nothing like what it's spelled in any way that's a pure Chinese chestnut has very large nuts it's grown from the area of you cane China I'm definitely messing that up that good bite resistance cold hardiness produces very large tasty nuts this is tree in row a five I don't know you want to try pronouncing that geez yang Hyuk Jin I'm sure whatever I'm saying is wrong this tree is a 2015 seedlings growing from Chestnut Ridge I'm sorry empire chestnuts that's kind of a - trunk thing going on here very pretty and rubbing a little there's you can see against a tree stake no thicker than my thumb on the main stem tubers this tree the mother tree which is the yiqiang is pure Chinese and has pretty large nuts thanks to mr. James knees 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 tore a curry that's an interesting chestnut that I thought you guys would like to see also there's a uke seeing 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 by tops or a route resistant and start making a list of chestnuts then there's just you and add previously studied 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. nave well that wraps up episode 2 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 3 of this how to grow 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 that part 3 of our series selecting your chestnuts thanks for watching be sure to LIKE and subscribe keep following me here at Lake Erie chestnuts

Channel: JohnSangl

Views: 60,777

Keywords: chestnut, chinese chestnut, castanea, castanea dentata, castanea mollissima, dunstan, dunstan chestnut, chestnut ridge of pike county, lake erie chestnuts, lake erie, lake erie chestnut, farm, orchard, pennsylvania, deer, deer hunting, food plot, chestnut tree, planting chestnuts, seed starting, seed, chestnut seed, how to plant chestnuts, how to plant chestnut seed, whitetail, seedling, tree seedling, erie, corry, chestnuts, sativa, castogne, collosal, grow your own chestnuts

Id: OHREHoFXIKs

Length: 18min 53sec (1133 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 26 2019