Planting different varieties of chestnuts

[Belo]

Hi all,

Google kept leading me hear, so I thought I'd join. I'm in upstate NY and just acquired 2 Dunstant chestnuts that I'm going to plant this weekend. I've learned that these will drop late September through early October. I found a company online that sells a variety called Au Buck that claims to drop later, and I'm going to try and buy some in the fall when they're sold.

My question is if these 2 varieties planted near each other will have any impact on drop dates, yields etc. I have plenty of space and can certainly plant the 2 varieties in different spots on my property, but would rather plant 4 or 5 together, but only if the cross-pollination wouldn't be an issue.

Thanks and happy to be a member and start reading and learning more. I'm active with food plots and habitat and looking to improve.

 

[OakSeeds]

Belo'
Welcome to HT my friend. If it were me, I'd plant the 3 chestnuts as a group with the Au Buck planted brtween the 2 dunstans or perhaps another configuration like a triangle. I'd hope for cross pollination; the chestnuts on your trees might become hybrids ( a dunstan pollinated by the Au Buck) with a drop time later than most chestnut trees. I don't believe you will incuir any problems from planting them togethher. Good luck.

 

[Hoytvectrix]

People are definitely going to try and market late dropping chestnuts to deer habitat managers. There are a couple of threads that have been copied to this forum regarding AU Chestnuts. Interestingly enough, it is tough to find much in the way for data on this variety. It seems like many people struggled to get them established in the field.

I looked into the published data on drop times for hybrid chestnuts and found a few seed sources for late dropping varieties. The two that I used were Skioka and Maraval. I am skeptical of any claims of November dropping chestnuts, but I know that there are several publications with university data that have documented later drop times for some varieties. Like OakSeeds said, you can plant them together to get hybrids of both, as Chestnuts hybridize fairly easily. They just need to flower around the same timeframe. I would focus on finding ones that you know will grow well in your area.

 

[RGrizzzz]

@Belo , Which tree pollinates another tree will have ZERO effect on drop times on the nuts. If you're growing the nuts out, cross pollinating between cultivars (Dunstand, AU Buck, etc) will affect drop times of the seedlings. Different trees will bloom at different times, so you want to make sure you have 2 or more trees to pollinate each other. Dunstans and AU varities are all Chinese, and should bloom around the same time. I'd plant them together, on roughly 20'-30' spacing. Chestnuts are primarily wind pollinated, so distance matters.


@Hoytvectrix
Skioka is a chinese x european hybrid
Maraval is a european x japanese hybrid

With the european lineage, they are likely susceptible to blight.


The AU Buck varieties are generally considered the latest dropping chestnut. Unfortunately, The Wildlife Group is the exclusion distributor of that tree, so you have to buy from them.

Greg Miller of Route 9 Coop selling some chestnuts that he labels as a "wildlife" variety.

What We Offer - Route 9 Cooperative

Buy Chestnut Trees Buy Chestnut Seeds Buy Chestnut Products Buy Culinary Chestnuts What We Offer We sell chestnut seed and seedlings of the following specie ...

route9cooperative.com

 

[omicron1792]

Also AU bucks are just seedlings and not grafts. So not guaranteed to have same genetics as parents. I’ve planted lots of them and they are all growing at this time.

 

[Hoytvectrix]

@Belo , Which tree pollinates another tree will have ZERO effect on drop times on the nuts. If you're growing the nuts out, cross pollinating between cultivars (Dunstand, AU Buck, etc) will affect drop times of the seedlings. Different trees will bloom at different times, so you want to make sure you have 2 or more trees to pollinate each other. Dunstans and AU varities are all Chinese, and should bloom around the same time. I'd plant them together, on roughly 20'-30' spacing. Chestnuts are primarily wind pollinated, so distance matters.


@Hoytvectrix
Skioka is a chinese x european hybrid
Maraval is a european x japanese hybrid

With the european lineage, they are likely susceptible to blight.


The AU Buck varieties are generally considered the latest dropping chestnut. Unfortunately, The Wildlife Group is the exclusion distributor of that tree, so you have to buy from them.

Greg Miller of Route 9 Coop selling some chestnuts that he labels as a "wildlife" variety.

What We Offer - Route 9 Cooperative

Buy Chestnut Trees Buy Chestnut Seeds Buy Chestnut Products Buy Culinary Chestnuts What We Offer We sell chestnut seed and seedlings of the following specie ...

route9cooperative.com

Maraval is blight resistant and one of the most productive and later dropping chestnuts. Skioka is listed as blight resistant by the USDA and a few universities but its popular offspring Layeroka is known to be susceptible to blight. I have been planting Skioka as a pollenizer and for overall nut production.

 

[Teeder]

Welcome Belo!
I'd plant them together for pollination. If they don't drop when you want, they'll still be great nutrition for the deer getting ready for fall.
I have a handful of dunstans planted around a straight American. I'll be saving those nuts this fall.

 

[Belo]

Thanks all. In upstate NY I'm not too worried about November drop, that's the rut here. But I don't necessarily want a September drop either if I can avoid it. I will keep looking into the varieties offered out there and reviews here on the site. Probably looking for only 5 or 6 total.

 

[H20fwler]

Belo, since you are new to chestnuts.
Be sure to screen and cage young trees, chestnuts do not like wet feet at all and like plenty of sun. Dunstans grow better in sandier soil.
Best growing chestnuts I've found are the chinese, not near as fussy growing as the others and much more DR. Chestnuts are great mast trees for a lot of different wildlife and very good roasted for us to eat. They are another good link in the food chain. I've got Dunstans, Colossal and Chinese in the ground.
I love it when I find volunteer chestnuts growing on our place from trees we planted.

 

[chickenlittle]

One consideration for late northern chestnuts is timing of hard frosts. Chestnuts fill out late in ripening. A hard frost too early and you won't have much nut production. I haven't seen anyone report on northern results for the AU Buck IV but I'd like to know how it does for you. The chestnuts I've collected here locally drop end of September/early October.

 

[omicron1792]

Great thread gents.

I’m big on the chestnut repopulation with Darling 58. I’ve planted a mother orchard in anticipation for its release.

That said, for strict wildlife value the Chinese varieties seem to be the ticket.

 

[The Fishman]

I would be more worried about whether the trees will survive an upstate NY winter than the drop time. You might want to search for cold tolerant chestnut varieties over trying to plant trees that may or may not survive winter. While Dunstans are rated up to zone 5, I have read reports of them not thriving that far north. I don't know about AU Bucks and cannot find anything on the Wildlife Group web site about hardiness zones for them.

 

[FoS]

I'm in NW WI and on the border between 3b and 4a zones. Would any kind of chestnut work up here?

 

[RGrizzzz]

I'm in NW WI and on the border between 3b and 4a zones. Would any kind of chestnut work up here?

Zone 3 is likely too cold. I'd check with Perfect Circle farm (zone 4). Maybe look into Royalmark too. Royalmark are grown in Michigan. I can't remember where exactly though.

perfect circle farm

I have been assembling an ever growing list of Chestnut seedlings that will grow in Zone 4, and of course much farther south. I don’t offer for sale any trees that have not been through at least one winter in the ground successfully. These have been through one winter . Sometimes they frost burn bac

www.perfectcircle.farm

 

[b116757]

I’ve ordered the seedling AU Buck trees not the grafted and they are nice trees they must be using a root pruning system on them because they had fantastic root systems.

 

[Belo]

I would be more worried about whether the trees will survive an upstate NY winter than the drop time. You might want to search for cold tolerant chestnut varieties over trying to plant trees that may or may not survive winter. While Dunstans are rated up to zone 5, I have read reports of them not thriving that far north. I don't know about AU Bucks and cannot find anything on the Wildlife Group web site about hardiness zones for them.

I appreciate that insight. They are rated for this area and many folks I know have them doing well. I do know that a late frost we had this year didn't do well on them, but the same is true for our apples and peaches and many other plants. Maybe global warming will help us in the future haha.

 

[Belo]

Here was my journey last Friday if anyone is interested. Also any tips or constructive feedback welcome.