I handled them all exactly the same (but separate). I got nuts from Chestnut Ridge and Wayne was nice enough to send me some Chinese chestnuts as part of his project. Then a couple years ago I had a startling revelation.
#CHESTNUT SEEDS FOR SALE FREE#
Going back to my original method produced good mold free results again. That was a big mistake and the mold issues that year were likely caused by this improper handling. Rather than letting nature take its course like the first year, I removed them from cold stratification after 60 days and tried to force them to germinate by adding heat and moisture. I then added the moist medium to and let them cold stratify. I put them in cold storage with no added moisture for a bit. So in the next year, instead of cold stratifying them and then planting them immediately, I decided to try to "time" things. I figured "this is easy, I'll try to make things better". Like you I had zero issues with mold when I first started. I've come to the conclusion that 90% of the mold has to do with exposure at the source or improper handling. Just some interesting things to consider when you start working with chestnuts. With chestnuts grown from nuts, you don't have this issue since each tree is genetically unique. So, when you are buying grafted chestnuts, you need enough trees of different varieties close enough to each other since they are primarily wind pollinated. So, I grafted Dunstan tree can not pollinate another grafted Dunstan tree since they are the same genetically. One more interesting fact is that a chestnut is sexually incompatible with itself. You have to call and talk to the owner to find out that their orchard was originally planted with grafted Dunstan trees. You will notice that Chestnut Ridge does not call them Dunstan chestnuts. You will notice that many places have been shut-down from using the trade name Dunstan without permission from Chestnut hill. Chestnuts are fairly true to seed compared to many trees, so what we are actually doing is starting seedlings from nuts that came from Dunstan trees. So, Chestnut Hill can sell whatever they want under that trade name, but for it to truly be a Dunstan variety, it needs to be a grafted tree. "Dunstan" started out as a cross that was then propagated by grafting. Now, one thing to keep in mind is that we are not really growing Dunstan chestnuts from seed. If I was buying seedlings, I probably would not pay the premium for Dunstan. The reason I use them is because they are no more or less expensive to grow from nuts which is what I do. While Dunstan chestnuts have a lot of good characteristics, so do many Chinese and other hybrids. It has been marketed very well and hyped in most of the hunting magazines. Dunstan is one of the early Chinese/American hybrids that is blight resistant. And to flesh out what Chickenlittle was saying.
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