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Currently unavailable Vigorous Seedling and Clonal Selections of Hybrid American Chestnuts - Seeds and Scions
Starting in the mid 80's I started growing chestnuts at my farm by purchasing seeds of numerous hybrids and species. I even found a few pure American chestnuts growing in a woodland near a home I was hired to do the landscaping on. Those trees and the few seeds they produced inspired me to grow other chestnuts. When those pure American trees died from blight at my farm, just prior to them fruiting, I was shocked at how fast that occurred. I soon learned this happens to ALL American chestnuts unless super isolated in the far north or western part of the United States outside their range. It just was not a practical tree to grow from seeds. Everyone warned me but of course I had to try!
Eventually I found a seed source called Douglas hybrids developed by Earl Douglas of New York. It was just at the end of his life and his wife was still doing some work with the collection before moving to Florida. Luckily others had established his hybrids in different areas and for a while I was able to raise several thousand seedlings of which I sold to the mega mail order nursery companies. I decided to make selections within these populations of plants and soon my hillsides were clothed in chestnuts. It was quite a bit of work growing chestnuts on a sandy hill. Eventually when they began fruiting and then later dying, I began a selection process that continues to this day. As a result it is now possible to offer the seeds and scions of the best selections that show how much vigor they have as well as how strong they are against this very strong disease.
Different varieties will be listed under this product and will be available during the dormant seasons of late fall and winter. Seeds will be kept under refrigeration and stored for maximum germination. Images of each selection and the nuts they produce will be also highlighted.
The Ecos chestnut hybrids are meant more for timber production with a side benefit of nuts. But it is possible some will be heavier bearing than others and could be useful nut producers on their own. Nut size is not like the commercial European types. To make selections of hybrid chestnuts is one thing but to further improve the diversity found in a population of hybrids is another. To me it is more critical because a grafted or cloned forest for wood productions is pathetic and not sustainable. Your really need self regeneration by the parent trees themselves. You really need an outbreeding population with lots of diversity. To get that is not that hard as the groundwork has already been laid but larger plantings need to be done to produce the seeds from these crosses without the usual name it, clone it and patent it mentality. The idea of using genetic engineering further highlights the narrow minded ideas that end up further delaying the inevitable. At the end I finally realized that blight was not the problem.
Varieties Available:
Starting in 2022-23 seasons scionwood of 10 varieties as well as seed nuts of the Oikos Tree Crops strongest selections will be listed here and throughout the website. The nuts will be offered from the parent tree as well as scion wood off the named varieties all of which were developed here at my farm in southwestern Michigan. My goal is to prevent weevil damage and make the crop possible again. This is one tough little critter that really dampened the crop here. I will of course be using all organic methods and controls to do that. I have found several pesticides within that management system that will work for that.
No outside cultivars have ever been imported to my farm and no scion wood of any kind has been put in my plantings ever. The only trees the nursery imported for sale was from the States of Washington and Oregon. As a result, chestnut blight and the chestnut gall wasp came in naturally from wind currents or other natural means in my location whatever those are. To offer scions, means to restrict the selections to trees that have no blight and have no signs of gall wasp. The scions also need to be treated with neem to prevent the chance that blight is also found on the twigs. The nuts are washed and cleaned too with a neem spray on the surface of the nuts to prevent mold and disease.
No shipment to CA,OR,WA, NV,NM.
| Plant Specs | |
| Genus & Species | Castanea dentata x mollissima |
| Seed Source | Michigan |
| Hardiness | minus 30 F |
| Height (ft) | 70 |
| Width (ft) | 40 |
| Pollination Requirements | Self infertile. Needs two plants or another chestnut of any type. |
| Soil | Sandy acidic. |
| Climate | Zone 3- Zone 8 |
| Ease of Cultivation | Easy to grow, this selection shows very good promise of high blight resistance and strong upright growth. Selections are immune to the blight or resistant enough that blight has little effect on the growth habit of the tree or yield. Not a commercial chestnut cultivars but definitely a strong seed selection that out performs the others on the market in terms of growth habit and vigor. |
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