Jack, for not direct seeding in the fall I mainly am just going off recommendations from Route 9 and Red Fern Farm which are two of the most successful growers in the US. They say direct seeding is an expensive way to feed wildlife. In our area we also will get up to -20F some winters, and without snow cover I was worried that would kill the seed.
I am going to direct seed now in the hope that less time in the ground means less likelihood that they get eaten. If they do get eaten, I will have plenty in pots to replace them. If they are inferior seedlings I will replace with potted backup seedlings. If I had issues with mold during stratification I would not be direct seeding anything.
The rootmaker system looks awesome, but I don't want to spend that kind of money per tree, I'm ok with waiting a couple extra years. Once I have planted out my fields I may give it a shot for having replacement trees ready for when some trees inevitably die.
This is my first year stratifying chestnuts. I got seed from 5 sources and am experimenting with different storage methods to hedge risk and learn if some ways are better than others.
I did take a peak in a bucket/pit and the first seed I pulled only had ~1/2 radical, so they are further behind the fridge which is a good thing for me.
Thanks. I wonder how well chestnuts will do in climates where the nuts will not germinate and grow buried in a couple inches of soil. I'm not suggesting folks should use a root pruning system. Direct seeding has advantages including cost. In order for seed to cold stratify, it needs to be above freezing with sufficient but not too much moisture. If the temperature gets below freezing and stays there, the nuts go into a suspended animation. I know guys who have stored chestnuts in the freezer with no added moisture and get them to germinate a year or two later. So regardless of air temperature, if the temperature an inch below the soil gets cold enough to kill a nut, I've got to wonder how trees will perform.
Maybe it is a moisture issue. Perhaps your winters are so cold that soil temp an inch or two deep goes from freezing to too warm so quickly that nuts can't cold stratify naturally. Most of the expense in direct seeding comes from protection, not seed cost. Here, if you bury the tree tube an inch deep, it is enough to protect the nuts from squirrels as well as the seedlings from deer. Maybe you have to take additional costly measures to protect seed that we don't. I would think the most expensive way to plant chestnuts for wildlife is to plant bare root seedlings or non-root pruned containerized trees. You have the high cost of trees compared to nuts and the higher planting costs. At lest here, you still have the same protection cost.
Both the root pruning container and direct seeding have their own advantages and disadvantages. Actually, the fewer trees you plant, the more expensive a root pruning system is. I did a quick cost analysis before I started. The setup cost is fairly high, but after 5 years or so of reuse, my cost per tree is negligible (if you don't count your labor) compared to the cost of protecting the trees. For chestnuts, I just use tree tubes and that seems to be efficient here. I'm not doing much with chestnuts these days. After planting a few hundred, I moved on to other tree varieties for my permaculture habitat component. Lately, I've been grafting apples to M111 and growing them in the root pruning containers for a season before planting them in the field. They get great care and feeding on my deck. Since I'm mostly using clonal rootstock now (I'm now done with using seedlings for full size apples), there are not tap roots to prune. So, I can skip the first steps and go directly to 3 gal RB2s.
My Rootmaker containers have seen a lot of service over the years. In a few years I'll be done with growing trees and I'll sell them. That will further reduce my cost per tree.
Best of luck with your stratification. Keep us posted on how it all works for you!
Thanks,
Jack
