Here are the basics for starting chestnuts indoors.
1) They need 60 to 90 days of cold stratification. This can be done by washing them, hydrating them well, and placing them in Ziploc bags with long-fiber sphagnum peat moss. You soak the long-fiber sphagnum and then squeeze all the water you can by making a fist. That is about the right dampness level. Close the bag half way and fold it over and put it in the crisper. Mold moves quickly from nut to nut, so I only do about a dozen nuts in each bag. If I get a mold issue it limits spread.
2) You can either direct seed them in the fall letting nature do the cold stratification, cold stratify in the fridge and direct seed them in the spring, or start them indoors. For starting them indoors you need lights, a series of root pruning containers, a professional mix, Osmocote fertilizer, and rain water.
3) The first container size is the Rootmaker 18 express tray. It will prune the tap root and is good for the first 12-16 weeks. You can cold stratify them for the proper amount of time and plant them all in 18s at the same time or you can let them develop tap roots in the fridge and plant them as the germinate. Keep in mind that if you do the latter, you need to check them often and plant them as soon as you see the first sign of a radicle or control their orientation in some way while in the fridge. If you change orientations radically, the root will shift directions forming a kink. You want to avoid that.
4) Plant them in the corner of 18s with the pointed end in the middle of the container. I like to put mine just under the medium so they are covered. Both the root radicle and stem form from that tip so they will be centered in the 18.
5) The most critical part is watering. The need to be damp to germinate but moisture also sets the conditions for mold. Chestnuts like acidic soil but mixes are adjusted to neutral. Using rain water will slowly adjust the pH just right for chestnuts. City water is usually neutral and sometimes has salts and other chemistry that trees don't like. It depends on your location. Well water may work but take it before any water softener. To water them, drench 18s. They are so well drained with the holes in the bottom and the professional mix that you can't give them too much water but you can water too often. Water should be dripping from the lowest center holes of the 18s when you are done watering them. Then wait for them to dry out a bit before watering again. If you pick up an 18 with promix and another with promix that just has been watered, you will notice a weight difference. Consider weight one full of water and the other empty. You don't want the tank to hit empty but you don't want to fill it too soon. Wait until the weight is about 20% or so between the empty and full weights before drenching them again. Trying to water on a schedule does not work. They consume water and different rates at different growth stages. Eventually you'll be able to tell easily. If leaves ever droop, water immediately, you let the get a little too dry.
6) Light and temperature are important. Don't try to start trees in a greenhouse in or a window in December or Jan. The light is too low in the sky. Seedlings may look fine on top but the root systems are horrible. You don't need expensive lights like the pot growers use. Seedlings only spend a fraction of their lives under artificial light. Light intensity diminishes with distance squared. I have found the most cost efficient lighting is to hand fluorescent shop lights so you can adjust their height easily. I have one grow area with 3 4' fluorescent shop lights that covers 4 trays of 18 and another with 4 lights that covers 6 trays of 18s. The nice thing about the Express trays is that although they are a bit more expensive than regular 18s, the cells are heavy duty and can be reused and more importantly, they can be rearranged in the tray. This lets you hang your lights so they are only 2" or 3" above all the trees they our organize by height. They lights can be angled to match the slope of the varying tree heights. When you setup your lights make sure you have enough height adjustability to accommodate the growth over 12-16 weeks. I shoot for a temperature around 70-80 degrees. High humidity can also help but it is a second order factor in my opinion. I used to focus much more on humidity than I do now.
7) I've tried planting directly from 18s in the spring and had very poor results. They just don't have enough of a root system yet. So, after 12-16 weeks, you will want to transplant to the next larger size root pruning container. I like to use 1 gal rootbuilder II containers myself for the next stag but I get maximum growth by keeping them on my deck for the first summer and doing a second transplant into 3 gal rootbuilder IIs and then eventually plant them from those in the fall. This thread explains that a bit more with pictures:
http://habitat-talk.com/index.php?t...h-rootmakers-transfered-from-qdma-forum.5556/
Those are the basics but there is a lot of variation. Different folks do it differently with different levels of success. A lot may depend on your area. Things like growing season and soils can affect what techniques you choose. Hope this helps and there are lots of guys growing chestnuts on here that can answer specific questions as they come up. Everyone brings a unique perspective.
Thanks,
Jack
