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Post by Reagan on Jul 11, 2021 16:13:27 GMT -6
I have three dunstans we put in the ground a year ago. We fenced and tied to three stakes to protect from high winds. I loosened the tie downs this weekend so they have more room to sway. How long should I keep them secured or should I remove them altogether?
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Post by nhmountains on Jul 11, 2021 18:44:29 GMT -6
I have three dunstans we put in the ground a year ago. We fenced and tied to three stakes to protect from high winds. I loosened the tie downs this weekend so they have more room to sway. How long should I keep them secured or should I remove them altogether? I’m not sure on your winds. Do other young trees need tie downs? I don’t have to tie any of my trees. I’d keep the cages on them though. How much growth have they put on this year? On my Dunstans I see some that are tall and fewer limbs but, reach for the sky. Others are shorter with lots of lower limbs. I’d have to stake the taller ones if they were in the open. This guy in PA uses tubes but, his trees would be blown over without them so I’d probably keep yours staked for a few more years.
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Post by Reagan on Jul 11, 2021 19:51:46 GMT -6
Other than spruce and pine seedlings, these are the only trees that I have planted. So I have little to compare. They are still pretty skinny. Late frost zapped the growth this spring so they haven’t changed much. They can sway a couple inches any direction right now before they hit a tight line. I think I’ll leave them like that for the year.
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Post by nhmountains on Jul 11, 2021 20:49:12 GMT -6
Other than spruce and pine seedlings, these are the only trees that I have planted. So I have little to compare. They are still pretty skinny. Late frost zapped the growth this spring so they haven’t changed much. They can sway a couple inches any direction right now before they hit a tight line. I think I’ll leave them like that for the year. I’d probably give them at least another year then. Chestnuts hold their leaves so they’ll catch the late fall and winter winds.
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Post by nhmountains on Jul 15, 2021 18:26:43 GMT -6
I went to the in-laws today and tried pollinating the chestnuts using catkins from each tree to rub on the opposite tree’s burs. That went well but, I’m not sure if I’m too late or not. The other issue is the pollen from the catkins knocked me on my ass about 20 minutes later. I didn’t see any in the air but, there must’ve been. I had allergies for most of the afternoon after doing that. I won’t know until late October if they got pollinated. I only saw about 20 burs between the two trees. I thought there’d have been more because there were hundreds of catkins. Probably 500.
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Post by jbird on Jul 16, 2021 15:01:47 GMT -6
Other than spruce and pine seedlings, these are the only trees that I have planted. So I have little to compare. They are still pretty skinny. Late frost zapped the growth this spring so they haven’t changed much. They can sway a couple inches any direction right now before they hit a tight line. I think I’ll leave them like that for the year. I don't tie mine and I have grown (that being a relative term) them from 12" bare root to 5 gallon potted trees to height of 10 feet or more and they have not had any wind related issues thus far. I seem to have other issues with dunstan's...like soil too wet or too dry. I see winter die back (I have one that seems to die beck every year...grow like hell, then die back again), I have seen them die from root rot (lost my best tree as it just started to produce it's first nuts) and the cicadae's ate the shit out of them as well this year. The 2 older ones I have I doubt will survive...they where not in the best shape to begin with. My dunstans seem to only survive...or grow painfully slow...but not thrive. I am really considering giving up on them and just planting Chinese and saying to hell with it! But to your point about the wind... I am in wide open mid-west farm country probably pretty similar to you....and they seem to do fine. I however like narrow cages as well so on small trees that limits their movement to some extent. You can also line the top of the cage with a piece of cut harden hose or the like to keep the bark from getting beat up.
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Post by nhmountains on Sept 14, 2021 18:57:06 GMT -6
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Post by Sandbur on Sept 15, 2021 7:46:38 GMT -6
Do squirrels and other wildlife use them?
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Post by nhmountains on Sept 15, 2021 7:55:42 GMT -6
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Post by nhmountains on Oct 6, 2021 7:11:11 GMT -6
I checked my FILs chestnuts yesterday. There’s definitely going to be a lot of nuts this year. The burs are swelling up nicely. Last year I harvested them on October 12. I’m going to check on them tomorrow and make a decision on taking on Friday or Sunday. I’ll need a ladder. There’s several up high. If I let them go I’d say they’d be dropping around October 15 which would be great if it was on my hunting land.
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Post by nhmountains on Oct 9, 2021 13:59:43 GMT -6
So timing is everything. The burs weren’t ready Thursday morning. I went to my camp Friday morning. My wife checked the chestnuts at her dads Friday evening. Severs burs had popped open. She got a couple nuts. I told her to go back this morning and get what she could reach. She got 27 burs. You can see the 4 unpollinated nuts in the lower right. The pollinated nuts varied on size. There’s plenty of nuts in those burs as well.
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Post by nhmountains on Oct 9, 2021 16:03:48 GMT -6
I went there this afternoon and got more burs using an apple ladder. The squirrels were quick. They’d taken all the nuts on the ground and in the open burs on the ground. I gathered another 15-20 burs. There were a few double burs that held 6 nuts that were on the ground. I got a couple unopened double burs so maybe they’ll have more than 3 nuts. I’m hoping for 75+ nuts. Definitely would’ve had 100 without the squirrels. Here’s an opened bur with no nuts. I’m amazed how quickly these went from unposed to open. Last year I harvested on October 12.
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Post by nhmountains on Oct 9, 2021 23:08:27 GMT -6
We went to a local Greek pizza shop tonight for dinner. The owners were both from Greece but, have lived in the US for 40 years. I knew they went back to Greece to visit family for a week every couple years. I showed the lady the photos of the chestnuts. She got excited and started telling chestnut stories. She showed me a photo of her village. It’s at about 6000’ and there’s a chestnut forest surrounding it. She says the locals go to the woods each year in the fall to gather the nuts and store them in their basements in cloth or grainsack bags. They don’t use plastic. They roast the nuts and have them every week. They last until spring. She said the trees are huge and old. I could see they were large from the photos. The story sounded like ones I’ve seen about the Appalachians in the US. She said that wildlife including bear eat the nuts but, the bear won’t touch the burs because of the needles. There’s enough nuts they get enough to eat without touching the burs. I never thought of Greece having bear but, she says they have lots of them in the mountains. Probably due to the chestnuts.
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Post by nhmountains on Oct 10, 2021 5:49:15 GMT -6
The count so far is 82 nuts out of 35 burs. A couple burs had 3 pollinated nuts and a 4th unpollinated. There’s still 15-20 burs that are ripening in a paper bag for a few days so the final count of nuts should be over 90. Some of the remaining burs probably only have one pollinated nut as they’re smaller or may not have any. If the larger tree decides to have more burs next year then the production should double or triple. It had a thousand catkins but, only a dozen burs this year. Here’s a bur with 3 pollinated and one unpollinated. Here’s a bur with one pollinated nut and 3 unpollinated.
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Post by nhmountains on Oct 13, 2021 3:38:41 GMT -6
The final tally harvest was 119 nuts in 49 burs. The amazing thing was every bur I collected had at least one pollinated nut in it. Very few had only one. The later the bur seemed have all 3 nuts pollinated. Those nuts were noticeably smaller than burs with single nuts. The trees are putting on a lot of growth each year. I’d expect the output to double next year if I can beat the squirrels.
When the chestnut sellers grade the nuts they rate them with small, medium, large. For growing purposes would you want a tree that produces smaller nuts but has 3 nuts per bur or a large nut that only produces one nut per bur?
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