New guy chestnuts apples pears persimmons

[Rangersedge]

Hi! I just found this forum. Live in south central illinois. Family has several hundred acres of mixed farmland, woods, and ponds. Lots of deer. Planting chestnuts and other trees for deer. Hoping to concentrate during hunting times.

Purchased and planted some Dunstan chestnuts probably 10 years ago. Maybe a bit longer. Have harvested nuts from them in fall 2021, put in bucket with damp sand, and buried over winter, then dug up in spring, and planted in 1 gl pots in spring 2022, and transplanted in Nov 2022. Some of those resulting trees are now up to about 17' tall and producing nuts for first time this year.

Harvested more nuts in 2023, did bucket over winter, planted and transplanted in 2024. Some of those are now over 6' tree pro tube.

Have a bunch of small apple trees raised from seed plan to transplant this fall. Don't know how they will do. I know they wont be duplicates of parent trees but hopefully produce plenty of apples for deer. Have probably 100+ chestnuts and 40+ apples at this point

Debating purchasing some grafted persimmons, pears, etc. Seems like most native persimmons arent producing fruit.

Been hit and miss with buried bucket approach. Not sure what I need to do better for consistent germination results.

All advice welcome.

 

[yoderjac]

Sounds like you have plenty of chestnuts. I played with apple from seed. Chestnuts are much more "true to seed" than apples. I had little success in getting any apples from seed to produce apples for deer. The good news is that you can always topwork them to known varieties.

We have loads of native persimmons on our farm. They have been my biggest bang for the buck (not just a pun). Persimmons are dioecious most trees are male or female. Only female produce fruit. You can't tell until they go into bloom. Males have clusters of little flowers and females have more individual blooms. There are a few trees that are "perfect" with both male and female limbs, but they are rare.

If you have them growing natively, it is not worth buying them. When a tree hits about 1" or so in diameter, I cut it down and bark graft scions from female trees. This ensures the top of the tree will be female. Because the root system of a 1" diameter tree is so large, it pushing the scions very quickly and you can get several feet of growth in one year, but you need to remove all water sprouts so the energy is focused in the graft. It is not uncommon to get the first persimmons in the third leaf after grafting.

Don't worry about grafting too many trees to female. If they are growing native in your area, there will always be male trees somewhere in the area. They are insect pollinated, so a male tree can be a mile away.

Bark grafting is one of the easiest grafts to do. There are good threads on here with pictures. You can collect scions yourself from your producing female trees or buy commercial variety scions. I decided I wanted to use our persimmons to put food on the ground for a long time period. I traded scions with other folks on this and other forums to get trees that were dropping at different times of the year. Most of the commercial varieties drop early, so I was focused on the mid and late periods. This is a bountiful year for our persimmons, but we have few oaks or chestnuts with nuts this year.

I getting old enough that I've stopped growing trees for the most part. I still dabble a little. When I was growing chestnuts, I had great success using a root pruning container system and starting them indoors in the winter under lights as a cabin fever project. This extended the growing season. I would start them in rootmaker 18s under fluorescent lights in Dec. By mid-April our last threat of frost had passed and they were ready for transplant into 1 gal RB2 containers and ready to be acclimated to our deck. By June many were ready to be transplanted in the 3 gal RB2s. There is always a range of growth when growing from nuts. The nice thing about container growing is that you can cull along the way keeping the best growers. At each transplant, I'd cull so that I had many more 18s than 3 gal RB2s. During that first long growing season, the best trees were 5/8" diameter and over 6' tall. I had near 100% success rates planting in the field from 3 gal RB2s. Because the root systems are not disturbed, they begin growing immediately. These root pruning containers significantly speed the growth of the tree. The root system is extremely efficient with many more fine terminal roots than a direct seeded tree but they have no tap root. This means this method could be problematic in an arid environment unless you provide supplemental water. In our area they work great.

There are also guys on this forum that grow chestnuts in root pruning containers outdoors only rather than extending the growing season like I did. You don't need a grow room doing it this way.

What you are doing, burring a bucket is effectively cold stratifying the chestnuts. I did that by putting them in a ziplok bag in slightly damp live sphagnum and putting them in the crisper in the fridge. I would fold the bag over and not zip it closed. The key is getting the moisture correct. Too much and you get mold.

One year @wbpdeer and I did a trial. We cold stratified our nuts using the same procedure and I did 60 days (minimum) and he did 90 days. He got over 90% germination success. I got lower success but it allowed me to control when they would be ready for transplant. I just increased the number of nuts I started with to compensate for lower germination.

Here were my results:

 

[Native Hunter]

Sounds like you need some pears. They are much easier to grow than apples, and deer love them. I recommend looking at the ones Blue Hill Nursery sells, and the Wildlife Group also has some great pears. However, I have heard a rumor that WG is going out of business after this season is over. Someone posted that on the other forum, but I haven't checked it out.

Topworking native persimmon trees with known varieties is the way to go for persimmons. It's fine to buy grafted trees, but they are expensive and sometimes hard to get to live. PS - when you start getting persimmon scions, get some Prok for yourself to eat. They are big and delicious.

Best wishes.

 

[g squared 23]

Apples from seed are too much of a risk that they will turn out poorly or at the best less desirable compared to grafted varieties. Buy some liberty, galarina and enterprise on MM111 and your apple crops will be heavy and consistent in 6 years.

In Central IL pears have grown quickly, but are just starting to produce in year 7.


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[Rangersedge]

What is MM111?

 

[Native Hunter]

What is MM111?

It's a rootstock for Apples, and it's a good one. It anchors very solid and makes a big semi-dwarf tree. Choosing a rootstock in apple trees is very important. Some of the ones like B118 and M7 should be avoided like a plague. I don't have many B118 trees, but all that I planted have either gone down in wind storms or are now leaning.

One more thing - If you have wild Callery pears you can topwork them to good varieties. I've seen some produce close to 10 gallons of pears just two years after being toworked.

 

[yoderjac]

What is MM111?

M111 is the semi-dwarf rootstock that our local nurseries uses because it works well in our soils here. There are lots of rootstock options. Once you decided the size of tree you want, talk to you local orchard about the clonal roostock they use for that size tree if they are close enough that you have similar soils.

 

[Mennoniteman]

Keiffer pears (not fake keiffers) might be what you are missing. We have harvested many early season deer off of keiffers, a hardy, prolific producing, disease resistant tree that grows like a weed and starts producing about the third year. The pears are not great for fresh eating but whitetails love them like candy, and they drop at the perfect time for hunting season.

 

[yoderjac]

Keiffer pears (not fake keiffers) might be what you are missing. We have harvested many early season deer off of keiffers, a hardy, prolific producing, disease resistant tree that grows like a weed and starts producing about the third year. The pears are not great for fresh eating but whitetails love them like candy, and they drop at the perfect time for hunting season.

To emphasize this point, pears are one of the things we don't have working for us. Back when we were planting fruit and nut trees, a couple of my partners took on pears. They bought them from a big box store and the were labeled as Keiffer Pears. They grew very well at our place and are 20' feet tall. They produce an abundance of great pears, but they are not Keiffer. They have survived bear attacks during the summer and recovered quickly from broken branches. I'm sure deer love them and they have been a great addition for providing food for our deer.

So why do I say they are not working for us? Because we purchased them for our early archery season attraction which begins in early Oct. By the end of August all the pears are on the ground and by early September, they are gone.

It is not uncommon for big box stores to mislabel trees. Be sure of your source for trees.

 

[Mennoniteman]

To emphasize this point, pears are one of the things we don't have working for us. Back when we were planting fruit and nut trees, a couple of my partners took on pears. They bought them from a big box store and the were labeled as Keiffer Pears. They grew very well at our place and are 20' feet tall. They produce an abundance of great pears, but they are not Keiffer. They have survived bear attacks during the summer and recovered quickly from broken branches. I'm sure deer love them and they have been a great addition for providing food for our deer.

So why do I say they are not working for us? Because we purchased them for our early archery season attraction which begins in early Oct. By the end of August all the pears are on the ground and by early September, they are gone.

It is not uncommon for big box stores to mislabel trees. Be sure of your source for trees.

Zone 6b, our keiffers are just starting to drop, just in time for archery season

 

[Native Hunter]

Hi! I just found this forum. Live in south central illinois. Family has several hundred acres of mixed farmland, woods, and ponds. Lots of deer. Planting chestnuts and other trees for deer. Hoping to concentrate during hunting times.

Purchased and planted some Dunstan chestnuts probably 10 years ago. Maybe a bit longer. Have harvested nuts from them in fall 2021, put in bucket with damp sand, and buried over winter, then dug up in spring, and planted in 1 gl pots in spring 2022, and transplanted in Nov 2022. Some of those resulting trees are now up to about 17' tall and producing nuts for first time this year.

Harvested more nuts in 2023, did bucket over winter, planted and transplanted in 2024. Some of those are now over 6' tree pro tube.

Have a bunch of small apple trees raised from seed plan to transplant this fall. Don't know how they will do. I know they wont be duplicates of parent trees but hopefully produce plenty of apples for deer. Have probably 100+ chestnuts and 40+ apples at this point

Debating purchasing some grafted persimmons, pears, etc. Seems like most native persimmons arent producing fruit.

Been hit and miss with buried bucket approach. Not sure what I need to do better for consistent germination results.

All advice welcome.

Here is a thread you might like to read. It's mostly about apples but has some other fruit as well.

Thread 'Native Hunter 2023 Apples'

Jun 2, 2023

This looks to be a good year for apples where I live. I have some common, as well as some unusual varieties. I thought maybe some folks might enjoy a thread where I document the apples as they ripen through the year. All of my apples are no spray, so you may see a few bug bites, etc....
I picked my first two apples for the year today. This variety is called Striped June (aka Margaret). They are a small apple ranging from about 2 to 2.5 inches in diameter. The taste is on the tart side, and they cook really well. I've never tried drying this apple but will probably do some this...

• Native Hunter
• Replies: 186
• Forum: Fruit Trees

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