Project: Growing Chestnuts - better than acorns

[catfishryan]

those rootmaker trays are awesome. the year before last i did a couple hundred acorns in regular pots, then last year i started using those. moved them into roottrapper 2 soft containers and some of the 1 year old trees out grew the 2 yr olds in the conventional pots. the root system they create are incredible, they are expensive but worth it. i did live oak, tx red oak, and mexican white oak 2 yrs ago most are 3- -6 ft a few 8+. last year i did chinquapin oak, burr oak and mexican white oak, all 3 are members of the white oak family which are preferred by deer, all 3 are also resistant to oak wilt which is getting bad in tx, and chinquapins start to produce acorns in 5-10 years. this year i took a break from the oaks and have a few hundred persimmon seeds stratifying in the fridge, they are supposed to be more difficult. we will see. good luck

[TradAg02]

I’ll be interested to see how yall’s persimmons do. I have 100 live oaks going right now, 72 in rootmaker cells and 28 in styrofoam cups. Since this is my first attempt I added the Styrofoam cups so I could compare to the rootmaker cells.

I also have a few hundred various acorns that I have been collecting in the fridge that I will start in a few months. Since this is my fist attempt I figured I would loose a lot to errors so I collected more than I need.

[Daniel75]

Good thread.

[BigTex.308]

Good thread.

Very good thread. Saving this one


Great stuff!



Ike

[unclefish]

Im not sure if they will eat them out of the bur or not. I doubt it though since they are so tough and thorny. Gotta let them peel out of the husk I guess.

I have some chestnuts sprouting their trunk now. I'll post up some pics when I get home tonight.



Tapachat

[unclefish]

Here are some pics from tonight. These are the first small batch I planted 15 days ago.





The ones in rootmakers planted on the 12-18 have a few trunks popping out but not many.

[unclefish]

Let me know if you want to sell some. I'll swap you some Persimmon seeds I'm stratifying now. They'll be ready to plant in March.

Will do. I've been thinking about getting some persimmons going too.

[unclefish]

The tallest one so far.....

[yanta61]

cool....I just took one of my bags out of the fridge so hopefully they will start to germinate pretty soon. I have 2 trays of burs oaks, 1 of sauls oaks, 1 of ????(forgot the name). The burs are rocking and probably a foot tall. The Sauls did good at first and seem to be dying off. The ???? ones are about 6" tall and pretty much stopped growing. I went crazy with the oaks this year and probably have 150-200 acorns still in the fridge along with about 5 pounds of Dunstan Chestnut.

[Scooby]

This looks interesting i think i might try to grow some trees. If i ever get my house finished

[TradAg02]

I started my live oaks in ziplocks with a wet paper towel at Thanksgiving. I transferred the ones that had sprouted to rootmaker cells the week before Christmas. I have them inside with a 4’ double bulb (daylight bulbs) light hung 2’ above them and water them every other day. They are planted under 0.25” to 0.5” below the soil (mix of miracle grow potting soil and miracle grow moss/seed soil). They have yet to sprout. I pulled one up and it had a long tap root, but nothing branching upward yet.

Should I be seeing some above soil growth at this point?

[bwool]

How long did they take to sprout? I have some in the fridge right now. Do you still have a hookup for sawtooth acorns?

[bwool]

cool....I just took one of my bags out of the fridge so hopefully they will start to germinate pretty soon. I have 2 trays of burs oaks, 1 of sauls oaks, 1 of ????(forgot the name). The burs are rocking and probably a foot tall. The Sauls did good at first and seem to be dying off. The ???? ones are about 6" tall and pretty much stopped growing. I went crazy with the oaks this year and probably have 150-200 acorns still in the fridge along with about 5 pounds of Dunstan Chestnut.

Did you peel your bur acorns?

[catfishryan]

i did burr acorns with and without caps, both germinated. if you peel them off make sure they are fully ripe. if you have to force them off, the bottom is likely to crack

[unclefish]

I started my live oaks in ziplocks with a wet paper towel at Thanksgiving. I transferred the ones that had sprouted to rootmaker cells the week before Christmas. I have them inside with a 4’ double bulb (daylight bulbs) light hung 2’ above them and water them every other day. They are planted under 0.25” to 0.5” below the soil (mix of miracle grow potting soil and miracle grow moss/seed soil). They have yet to sprout. I pulled one up and it had a long tap root, but nothing branching upward yet.

Should I be seeing some above soil growth at this point?

I would wait another week or two on the live oak acorns.....then if you still have nothing...pull one up and see if the root is still spreading.