Chinese Chestnut

Size, growth and what to expect

Chinese chestnut seedlings commonly bear in four to seven years, and grafted trees often within two. Missouri's chestnut growers look for 18 to 24 inches of new shoot a year on a young tree, and 12 to 15 once it bears. That is close to the foot and a half a year our growth estimator assumes for a medium tree. It makes a spreading tree 40 to 60 feet tall and as wide, with a crown that settles at 35 to 40 feet in an orchard.

The burs open from mid or late September through October, usually with 2 or 3 nuts apiece. Each nut is about an inch across, 30 to 50 to the pound. Nearly every chestnut rejects its own pollen, so plant a second seedling within 200 feet. It flowers in June, and into early July as far north as Boston.

It is native to China and Korea, not to this continent, and it is the most blight-resistant of the north temperate chestnuts.

How to grow Chinese Chestnut

Chinese chestnut needs full sun and soil that drains, average to dry, ideally sandy loam on the acid side. Trees grow as wide as they are tall, so set them 35 feet apart and as far from the house.

Plant while dormant. Saplings arrive bare-root or potted. Dig a wide hole no deeper than the root mass, set the flare at grade, refill with the soil you dug, and mulch a ring that stops short of the trunk. Nuts must never dry out, so keep them cool and damp until you sow, plant them an inch deep, and pin hardware cloth over the row against mice and squirrels.

Water through the first two summers, but never leave the ground soggy. Voles and rabbits chew the bark, so guard the lower trunk each winter until the bark thickens, and cage against deer. Take off low branches in late winter as the crown rises.

A chestnut will not pollinate itself, and a lone tree drops empty burs. Plant each tree where water never stands, because heavy, poorly drained soil or ground that stays saturated in wet seasons promotes Phytophthora root rot, a devastating disease of chestnuts. Blight resistance is good but not absolute, so cut out sunken cankers when you find them.