Woodland Chestnut

These two source trees are isolated most likely pollinating each other. The Woodland Chestnut trees are both near 80’ tall with a circumference that it would take 3 people hand in hand to go around these trees! They produce an annual abundance of medium to large, very sweet chestnuts at a very early age (3-5 years depending on your soil conditions) which flower well after the chance of frost. Woodland Chestnuts are very fast growing with excellent blight resistance and are very cold hardy.

These trees have been through “ambient temperature’’ of -22 degrees. The Woodland Chestnut will grow some truly GIANT chestnut trees! Do NOT plant in with fruit trees as they will end up shading out your entire orchard. This chestnut tree for deer is an excellent tree for planting after a timber harvest.

Fall Draw™ Chinese Chestnut

Fall Draw Chinese Chestnut is a fast growing tree reaching heights of 40’ to 60’. It produces an abundant crop of sweet chestnuts every year without fail, as they bloom well after the chance of frost. These Fall Draw Chinese Chestnuts have excellent resistance to blight. I have been growing from the same group of Chinese chestnuts for years. The earliest I have ever seen the parent trees start dropping is October 8th and the latest has been October 23rd. Since chestnuts dropping at that time of year is something that’s not typical in my region and most chestnuts have finished dropping by the time October rolls around, this reason is why they are called Fall Draw and why they give you an advantage during hunting season!

The trees grown from these parent trees will each be genetically different with various drop times from each individual tree from the last week in September through the last weeks in October. It is exceptionally hard to gather nuts from these trees because they are highly desired by deer. I gather every evening because there won’t be any left on the ground come morning and there is always an amazing amount of deer under this group of trees when they are dropping. These trees are planted and thriving as far North as Western NY in hardiness Zone 5 on my properties.

Northern Giant™ Hybrid Chestnut

Blue Hills’s Northern Giant™ Hybrid chestnut is a massive tree that has survived the chestnut blight and Pennsylvania’s hot summers and cold winters in the ruins of an old farmstead. With its 13ft circumference, 70 feet in height and 60 foot wide crown it produces huge loads of sweet nuts every year which drop in late September and extend well in through the until late October. The nuts produced from these trees are large in size and very edible for humans and deer alike. This tree is a complex hybrid of chestnut genes once widely grown in the dominant chestnut growing region of early America – Eastern Pennsylvania.

As the massive American chestnut crops produced northeast of Philadelphia succumbed to the chestnut blight, farmers rapidly ramped up production of the European, Japanese and Chinese chestnut cultivars. And these farms spawned hybrids that still exist today. The Northern Giant™ Hybrid Chestnut has Chinese, Japanese, European and American genes and has been identified as a Chinese x [(European x Japanese) x American] hybrid. Take advantage of this successful quadruple genetic hybrid and order a two or more of them to assure cross pollination. Northern Giant™ is the most vigorous chestnut tree we have ever seen. The original group of trees have experienced -20 degrees making them suitable for plant hardiness zones 4b-8

PLANTING CHESTNUT TREES
Plant at least two chestnut trees nearby for pollination. Chestnut trees must be planted with a minimum of 35′ spacing. They can grow in various soil types, but I recommend avoiding wet or heavy clay soil. These trees are tolerant to low pH and fertility but will grow best in nutrient-rich loam soil. They require at least 6 hours of full sun.