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

yoderjac

Well-Known Member
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:

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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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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