I got these 20 chestnut trees as nuts from the American Chestnut foundation in New York back in March or April of this year. I put them in these root starter bags and they are doing well. Not sure why the one is more yellow as it seems to be growing well. The little guy on the right is an oak that I picked up out of the yard and stuck it in the pot.
I hope they turn out to be blight free for you. It seems like it might be a bit of a long-shot if the are 100% or 15/16 American but I hope they are able to produce one that is blight free! I thought they were trying to introduce a blight free wheat gene into American chestnut trees. That sounds interesting!
Strutter, I hope yours do better than mine did last year. I planted 25 that I got from the NY Am Chestnut Foundation. Bout the time they got to the size of yours they started to discolor on the leaves. Then every one died. I watered and fertilized them as recommended by them. When I talked to someone from the KY chapter, they told me it's due to region and in order to have success I needed KY/TN/WV or OH nuts. I don't agree, but I am no expert. Keep us posted and I hope you have great success. When I asked the KY chapter guy how to get locals it's been crickets since!
I have about 50 dunstan chestnuts at the farm now. Some are 5 foot and a few about 10 or so. Should have some nuts from the big ones next year. Several of my sawtooth oaks are loaded this year if they keep on going, the deer should have some new flavor nuts to munch on.
Dunstan chestnuts are a cross between chinese and american chestnuts. It's characteristics differ between trees: some tend to grow short and wide like Chinese and some tend to grow large like the american. They got a patent for the Dunstan even though they propagate through the chestnut itself (as opposed to grafting). Chestnuts are a bit more true to seed than apples or many other seeds, but it's not a copy of the parent and it's certainly not a full American Chestnut. Don't get me wrong, they are a good chestnut tree, but they're marketing is very good!
I think they are trying to breed an American Chestnut with a Chinese and then several Americans until they get 15/16 American. They're hoping that that 1/16 Chinese will give it some blight resistance. Most will die, but they are doing a "trial" until they find some that work. I imagine once they find the low percentage that have resistance, they can then sell them as American Chestnut trees. That's my understanding of it and could be the reason why yours didn't work.
I planted the others in April and some last year in October I was thinking about putting these in bigger pots and keeping them another year.
Rut, yeah that's what they are shooting for. I was hoping that 4 or 5 of my 25 would make it but didn't happen. There was a farm I used to hunt that had a couple on it (they are all dead now) anyhow you'd have to beat the deer to get em off em. You could see 20 - 30 deer under one tree at times.
