Chestnut cross pollination

[bandmiller2]

What did we do before the internet.A wile back I asked about a problem with my two full grown american/chinese cross chestnuts trees lots of pods with no nuts.It seems some hybreds are male sterile and can't polly each outher.Just ordered two chinese chestnuts for pollination seem any pure strain chestnut will pollinate all chestnuts. Frank C.

[Ron Wenrich]

I remember reading about the chestnut before the blight hit PA.  It seems that back at the turn of the last century, there were lots of chestnut farms.  Apparently, chestnuts had a lot of uses besides lumber.  But, they said the air was filled with pollen from Chinese, European and American chestnuts.  There was a lot of hybrids, but not enough to fight off the blight.

[bandmiller2]

Ron, that blight was the biggest crime to hit our woods.Chestnuts were probibly the most usefull tree in the forest.I made a split rail fence from a chestnut phone pole straight grain you could split the whole pole end to end.My old house has chestnut beams. There are good folks breeding resistant American chestnuts but I doubt we'll see them common in the forest again. Frank C.

[Ron Wenrich]

The only reason they were common before was due to the massive cutting that was done by the early settlers.  At one time, 50% of the trees in my county were chestnut.  They are not a climax species.  Hemlock is a climax species, but they were cut down mainly for the tannin that was used for making leather.  The wood was a secondary product.  All those stands of pine were long gone. 

They used to farm well up the ridge side.  Eventually the soil gave out and new farming areas opened up in the Midwest.  The industrial revolution also helped take people away from the farms.  Large areas grew over, with chestnut leading the way.  I wonder if those early farmers left some chestnut as a food source, and that would be why they came back so strong.

They now have blight resistant chestnut.  Its 90% American characteristic with 10% Chinese.  The problem now is to get enough seedlings to plant.  Everyone wants to be the first on their block to establish a new chestnut forest.  I predict that they will mainly be used as a yard tree to garnish the needed snob appeal from the neighbors.  They will quickly be looked upon as a bad choice due to the nut husks. 

It doesn't take long for chestnuts to bear nuts.  I think it is on the lines of about 10 years.  That's how they got around to the 6 generations needed to get the genetics right.  With the fast growth rate that chestnut has, you might be able to see a chestnut market again in about 15-20 years.  We still had a chestnut market back in the '70s as the last of the dead chestnut were being harvested at the lowest extent of the range.  So, all isn't lost quite yet.

[SwampDonkey]

American chestnut were even planted in Nova Scotia many years ago. And they are not native there. And the largest registered chestnut in Canada is in Nova Scotia I believe.