Direct Seeding Chestnuts....Sort of...

[yoderjac]

I'm trying something new this year. For many years, I grew high volumes of wildlife trees, including a lot of chestnuts and Allegheny Chinquapins by starting them under lights in the winter in rootmakers. A few years back, I decided I was too old to continue this at the farm and sold all my rootmaker containers.

Last spring, I decided to direct seed some Allegheny Chinquapins. The seeds were from the previous fall kept in a crisper and all had root radicles when I planted them They were protected with tree tubes and planted in slits through weed barrier to reduce competition. THEY ALL FAILED! I must have planted 30 of them. There is a picture on this thread: AC and OCs Thread. These are at my retirement property near the barn so I was able to watch them daily and I'm sure none were predated. I'm not sure why they failed.

So, I'm trying something new this year. I collected a bunch of chestnuts from my Dunstan (sons of Dunstan) trees last fall. Because beavers cut down all the ACs, they did not produce nuts last year. I still had some 2 year old AC nuts in the crisper.

I'm going to wait until I get top growth. I'm not using root pruning pots, so this will be a balancing act. I'll need to plant them before the roots j-hook or circle and I'll need to dig deep enough to accommodate the root radicle at planting time. I'm simply taking some 5 gal buckets, drilling a few drain holes in the bottom and filling them about 1/3 full with pine bark mulch for drainage. Next I'm adding about 1/3 full of cheap big box store potting soil with fertilizer. Finally, I'm adding an inch or 2 of sphagnum the nuts, and covering them with sphagnum.

A few of the chestnuts had significant mold and a few did not survive the float test, but 95 percent sunk. They had been in the fridge since September with no added sphagnum or water. About 5% of the survivors had a root radicle just beginning. The ACs were very moldy. Only a few survived the float test and none had root radicles.

Here are the buckets before I covered them with sphagnum:

I watered them and put them in the barn. Tomorrow, I plan to hang them on my overhang posts where they can get some sun, but I first need to put hardware cloth over them to keep birds out.

I have no idea how this method will work out. I'm wondering if I'll have root entanglement by the time I transplant. I have way more nuts in these buckets than I have room to plant, so I only need a small percentage to survive. Any extras I'll offer to the neighbors.

 

[yoderjac]

We will see how this technique works:

 

[yoderjac]

My experience germinating chestnuts has been indoors under lights where temperature is 75 degrees and humidity is controlled. Typically after I pull the nuts from the fridge, it is about 2 weeks before I start seeing top growth.

This is a bit more uncontrolled. I think @mattpatt starts his outdoors. These went out on March 19th. It has been about 2 weeks. I'm seeing nothing yet. I'm hoping this is just because ore nights are cooler (so are most days) then in my old growing room. We have not had any frost since I put them out. Our last threat of frost is usually about April 15th.

I guess the nuts know when it is safe to begin top growth.

Any advice is welcome. I'm finding watering interesting not using rootmakers and intending to direct seed these after they show top growth. They are in sphagnum sitting on potting soil sitting on pine bark. I water heavily and let water run out the bottom. Since the 5 gal buckets are much deeper than the root radicles will grow before I plant them, I'm not worried about wet feet. Each day, when I look at the sphagnum, it is dry, so I've been watering almost daily.

 

[yoderjac]

Perhaps a little encouragement today. When I first put them in the buckets, I covered them well with sphagnum. I think this helps keeping them from drying out too much. However after multiple waterings, the sphagnum settles and I'm able to see a few of the nuts. While I don't see any top growth yet, I am seeing that the visible nuts do have root radicles. Hopefully in the next week or two I'll start seeing top growth.

 

[yoderjac]

Well low and behold, I see top growth! Two of the three buckets each have one chestnut with about 1/4" of top growth sticking up. I think I'll wait until they are about 3"-4" tall before direct seeding them. That should not be long. I have not seen anything from the AC, but those seeds were 2 years old and I had to wash off some mold from them before planting. The ones I planted were the small percentage of the 2 year old AC seed that passed the float test.

When there is more to see, Ill take some pics.

 

[yoderjac]

I have at least 3 with a 1/4" or more of top growth. They are calling for lows in the high 20s or low 30s tonight, so I brought them into the barn today. I'll put them back out tomorrow afternoon. Looks like this is our last threat of frost.

 

[yoderjac]

Looks like we are past the last frost, so I put the buckets back outside. Look like I'm seeing more chestnuts pop up. I have not seen any AC germinate yet, but the seed was 2 years old.

 

[KSQ2]

After my failure last year, I’m experimenting too, you’ve been watching a commenting, so I won’t mention details you already know. I’m hopeful as well. Trying new methods is pretty fun; I’ll be watching this.

 

[yoderjac]

After my failure last year, I’m experimenting too, you’ve been watching a commenting, so I won’t mention details you already know. I’m hopeful as well. Trying new methods is pretty fun; I’ll be watching this.

Here are a couple pictures for you. Sorry if they are blurry. I had to stick the phone under the hardware cloth so I did not have to remove it.

Hopefully you get the idea, top growth is starting. I'm amazed how slow it is compared to the controlled conditions of starting them indoors under lights. So far, I'd estimate the total in all 3 buckets to be about 10 with top growth. The tallest is about 2 1/2 inches. most are just 1/4" or so.

 

[yoderjac]

As if this morning, I was able to find about 15 total with some top growth. Today is our last threat of frost. I'm going to consider planting some of these later this week or next. 15 is a pretty small percent of the total number of chestnuts. So far, no ACs. I think I can probably count them out.

 

[yoderjac]

We started the process of direct seeding these nuts with root radicles and top growth. We haven't actually planted a tree yet but we did the prep work for the first two trees. We were smart enough to strip off the top soil and keep it separate from the subsoil when we excavated for the house. Since I had the mini-excavator handy, I decided to use it for soil improvement. At the farm we have very think topsoil and then clay. Here at the retirement property, we have anywhere from 6"-10" of top soil as it was an old pasture.

I used the excavator to remove the top soil from the planting hole and put it in a cart. I then used it to dig down about two feet or so. I used the teeth to rake the bottom of the hole so it does not glaze. Next we added several cups of 10-10-10. We covered that with the native clay. Next, I went to our pile of top soil and grabbed a bucket full and dumped it in the hole. Next I mixed the top soil in the cart with about 15% potting soil and added some Osmocote slow release fertilizer and mixed it all up. This went at the top layer on the hole. We did this for two trees and then my wife watered both holes good. That should let things settle enough that I'll know tomorrow if I need to add a bit more top soil.

I'm watching the buckets of chestnuts closely. As of today, there are at least 18 with top growth. The largest top growth is about 3". We have another inch or so to go before it hits the hardware cloth.

Tomorrow, I hope to plant the first two trees and do the prep for a couple more. My plan for the actual planting is to carefully remove the nut from the bucket. Hopefully it only has a root radicle and no lateral roots and should be easy to extract from the sphagnum and potting soil. With any luck it won't be down to the pine bark layer yet. Once extracted, I'll dig the smallest hole it will fit in with a hand trowel and insert the root radicle. I'll probably sprinkle top soil in to fill any air gaps around the root. These trees are far too young to extract the nut yet. Once planted, I plan to put a short one foot or less tree tube and stake it with a fiberglass rod I saved from collapsed turkey blinds of bygone years. We will then put remesh cage over it and attach it to a T-post. We the will water and mulch the tree. Hopefully, these are far enough from the woods to keep squirrels off of them. I'll post some pics after we plant the first couple as well as any lessons learned as they progress.