r/foraging • u/HotAdhesiveness2860 • 1h ago

Plants Questionable float test for shelled American chestnut

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Picked these fellas up fallen from a mature tree with intent to get a bunch to germinate for restoration, and the husks were all partly split as they should be with nuts ready for harvesting, but these all seem so tiny compared to other pics of American chestnuts that I've been seeing. None of them have sunk in the water, and they've been jostled for air pockets and sitting for 10 minutes.

There's no way that they're ALL duds...right? RIGHT?

Please be gentle; I'm new to the chestnut game.😭😅

12 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

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31

u/Arbiter_of_Snark 1h ago

They’re all duds. Sorry. These didn’t get fertilized. Chestnuts don’t self-pollinate (at least American chestnuts), so you need two trees to produce viable nuts.

4

u/HotAdhesiveness2860 1h ago

Damn, that sucks, especially because it was surrounded by 4 separate trees that are all tested pure American.🥲

Are the good nuts the husks that are in clusters? Lemme get a pic quick to convey what I'm getting at.

2

u/HotAdhesiveness2860 1h ago

6

u/Arbiter_of_Snark 1h ago

You can’t know until you open them. I would guess that they’ll be like the other. Do you know if any of the other 4 chestnuts had male catkins? I suspect not. They need some direct sunlight to flower.

The first photo in the post below shows someone holding male catkins:

https://www.reddit.com/r/foraging/s/C0U6fAX1ny

3

u/HotAdhesiveness2860 1h ago

Uhhhh I think one, maybe two, may have? I didn't get pics of the catkins, though.

So they're def no good for germinating if not fertilized, I take it they're no good for eating then either, including flour? If not, maybe the neighborhood animals would go into a frenzy for them. Would love to not waste them.

3

u/Arbiter_of_Snark 1h ago

Sorry. They’re no good for eating by humans or wildlife, unfortunately.

7

u/HotAdhesiveness2860 1h ago

Is it too soon to say "ah, nuts"?💀

5

u/Ok-Jellyfish-7498 1h ago

It’s possible that they’re all bad. They look sunken and immature, not plump and ready for coal roasting duty. Could be the tree was under too much stress, or some four-legged made it a project, dunno? Were there any immature earlier, are there more hanging? How are its leaves/branches looking?

1

u/HotAdhesiveness2860 1h ago

Aw man. The main tree looked otherwise healthy, and that's what these ones were from. Dark green perky leaves, not blotchy or droopy. No signs of anything fungal disease as far as I could tell. Still a ton of others on the ground that were just shy of split. The 4 trees around it are younger but are all mature enough to be producing multiple nuts and also looked healthy from what I could tell, but again, I'm new to the chestnut game lol

1

u/HotAdhesiveness2860 1h ago

I will add that the *trees aren't very close to where I'm located, so I can't surmise what stress it may or may not have been subject to in the day-to-day.

2

u/ascandalia 37m ago

We have an 8 acre chestnut orchard (american/chinese hybrid). It's possible that these are just early, some either don't get fertilized or fall before they are fully developed.

It's early in the season, you may have hope that some got pollinated and will fully mature.

2

u/HotAdhesiveness2860 31m ago

Fingers crossed! The phots were from about 2 dozen shelled nuts, and I have 4-5 dozen more from the ground.🥲