Im thinking about planting some chestnuts on my property as an attractant and personal use. How many of you have chestnut trees for deer management? I know they produce every year and produce a decent amount after 2-4 years. I would love to plant some pure american chestnuts as apposed to hybrids or Chinese but probably wont due to blight.
I dont know about Chestnuts, but I do know that sawtooth oaks begin producing after 6 years and they produce yearly, not on and off like some trees. I thought Chestnut trees were like that, one year it drops a ton, and the next year none. Sawtooth acorns are just as tasty to the deer as white oak acorns. If your looking to produce something super fast, I would look at apple or other fruit trees. 3 years ago we planted about 40 apple trees on a fence line, many of them are producing good apples this year.
There are two mature chestnut trees (+50yr) on my dad's place. The deer seem to really like them. When they start producing nuts, you can be sure of two things. You'll have a bumper crop of squirrels and you won't walk around barefoot.
I purchased some dunstan chestnuts this year in hopes to provide a treat for the deer. Chestnuts can produce in as little as three years but usually take more like five years, but they do produce every year. The only issue I see with them and deer hunting is that they're an early drop. Its also recommended to plant more than one tree and even multiple species to get crosspollination and max crop. I plan to plans some Chinese and Americans also. A ton of info on chestnuts on QDM forums.
The ones I bought this spring are potted to put max care into them this growing season and will be put into the ground next spring. Im located at the far northern edge of their growing range so its going to be an experiment over the next several years. Chinese chestnuts are supposed to be a bit more cold hardy. If planting from nuts they cant freeze, learned this the hard way.
Realtree Nursery is selling dunstan chestnuts and sawtooth oaks thru select walmarts. i picked up a few of each and put them in the ground a month ago - so far so good. http://www.realtreenursery.com/
Gonna consider a few chestnut plantings next season...no real need other than I want to see what the deer think of them come 6 years or so. May throw some Sawtooth oaks out as well.
Thanks for the response guys. I think im going to wait plant a couple hybrid chestnuts in the next few years. Im waiting to see how the new hybrid chestnut trees that they have breed resist to blight since they are 15/16ths American traits and only 1/16ths Chinese.
