Tips and Tricks to Grow Chestnuts from Seed
You want to grow chestnuts from seed, but don’t know where to start? You have come to the right place. This will give you a step by step guide to grow chestnuts from seed.
Grow Chestnuts from Seed
Choose local chestnuts, if available, either foraged yourself or from a nursery that you know personally. Even if you get the chestnuts from a nursery, ask them if they treat the chestnuts. Because they are intended for selling in the store for human consumption, rather than planting, the local “organic” chestnut farm sprays or soaks them in some hydrogen peroxide-type solution before sending the chestnuts to the local store. This decreased the sprout rate to about 25%. So store bought chestnuts that are not a good source for sprouting and planting.
If you buy chestnuts from a nursery online, make sure that they are as close your area (USDA Zone) as possible. Seeds have a “memory” – they were successful in the life cycle in that climate where they were grown. If you live in KS (like me), it will not go well for you if you plant chestnuts that you bought from a nursery in the Pacific Northwest. The seeds prefer to thrive in that climate.
As I talked about in Ep. 49 – Foraging, it is best to choose chestnuts that you foraged yourself. My friend planted chestnut trees many years ago on public land in a small town near me. He forgot about them, and most people don’t know what to do with them, so last Fall I harvested buckets of them – some to eat, and many to grow out into trees.
If you are looking for untreated foraged chestnut seeds to plant, go to GrowNutTrees.com
Overwinter Chestnuts in a Bucket
I use a 2 gallon food grade bucket with a fitted lid. I drill holes in the bottom and in the lid. I fill the bucket with sand, layering out the chestnuts. I lightly water it and then put in a dark place where it won’t freeze too hard. I have put them in my greenhouse or in the garage. I have also buried the bucket for the winter.
Make sure that you don’t use potting soil or the chestnuts can get moldy and rot. Use sand that was not treated.
Ready to Plant the Chestnuts
In mid to late April I check to see if the chestnuts have sprouted. It may be only a little sprout or it may be a long, rooted sprout, especially in sand.
You can see in the picture below that the chestnut has a hairy root and a long sprout. The chestnut is attached to the root. Do not remove the nut. This feeds the plant until it is rooted out (similar to how an egg yolk feeds a chicken in the egg).
They are ready to plant in a tree pot, a larger 5 gallon food grade bucket, or in the ground to grow out a year.
You add soil that is similar to your soil. Mix in a little bone meal and blood meal or worm castings.
Planting in a Garden Bed
Some nursery videos online recommend that you plant the chestnuts into a garden bed to grow out into seedlings for a year. This works if you have a bed with deep, fertile soil. I have not had much luck with this because chestnuts have a long tap root, and even in a deep bed with added soil, the taproot went deep and it was difficult to get out for transplant without breaking the tap root, resulting in a poor transplant and tree failure.
You can also plant into an air gap raised bed. This is a raised bed up on blocks with kitchen wire/ratwire screen on the bottom. The chestnut taproot extends and hits the air and stops.
Ready to Transplant
After a year’s growth, the tree is ready to transplant after it goes dormant. You want to choose an area with plenty of room for growth. Space them 15 – 20 feet apart. You can plant them closer if using the STUN method (Sheer, Total, Utter Neglect). This is where you grow them out, see which ones are successful, favor the ones that thrive and produce nuts first, and cut down the rest.
Should you irrigate? Depends on your climate.
I have had the most luck with creating a mound and a small swale. As you can see in the pic below, the chestnut is on the right, planted in to a swale that I created with a broadfork.
Thriving News: Creating a Food Forest from Design to Delivery
Be Prepared for Failure
Chestnuts are finicky, especially in KS and the South. Chinese Chestnut hybrids perform the best. They are still sometimes prone to canker or blight. You may want to overplant them, closer than recommended, and then cut down the ones that do not thrive.
As noted above, be careful with the taproot! The tree will not do well if you break the tap root when digging them up for transplanting.
Stick with it! I have had lots of failures and still have a few resilient trees. I still have a couple of years until I get the first nuts.
Chestnuts will develop nuts at about five years. Make sure that chestnut trees are close enough to each other for cross pollination. Some types need other varieties to create nuts.
Good luck!
Chestnuts are great forms of sustenance. You can roast them, dry and grind into flour, eat them raw, add them to recipes. or boil them.
If you would rather get a head start and buy your chestnut trees, you can order chestnut seedlings at GrowNutTrees.com.
Resources:
Twisted Tree Farm – Air Prune Beds
Twisted Tree Farm – Chestnut videos
This article is cross-posted from Thriving News)