Planting for a Sweet Chestnut coppice - any tips?

[Goaty]

Nut type seeds I've filled big glass jars in layers of seed and sharp sand. Punch small air holes in lid. Keep outside and moist. When you see the roots appear about this time of year pot on.

 

Don't let the roots get too far or you will damage them.

[Gary Prentice]

1. Stop the mice eating them

2. Sow as soon as you can, 3 times the depth of the seed (6" perhaps).

3. Normally they need a period of cold (we left ours out over winter).

4. Soil.... gritty moist compost.

5. The pots need to be 12" deep....either root liners or pots.

 

Last year we sowed ours when we got the seeds at Xmas (from supermarket chestnuts) and we had frosts in February and they came through after that.

 

This year we sowed them the same sort of time and we've just had two shoots already but it's probably not been cold enough.... so they just need to be left longer.... don't disturb them until they've had plenty of time to shoot.

 

Once they start growing well from the pots it's best to transplant them outside into soil.

 

If you have a shortage of plants you could layer them and they'll root along the ground & you can take cuttings.

 

Hope this helps.

cheers, steve

 

Sounds like they need stratifying before they will germinate. I think the normal practice, if that is the case is to put them in the fridge for a period before sowing.

[gooseflight]

Fresh seed always helps.

[sandspider]

Apparently sweet chestnut grows easily from seed. I've got 20 or so seeds in pots in my garden, planted as soon as I collected the seed - only an inch or two deep though. They shouldn't need stratification, they're only lightly dormant. Having said that, none of mine have sprouted yet!

[SteveA]

Sounds like they need stratifying before they will germinate. I think the normal practice, if that is the case is to put them in the fridge for a period before sowing.

 

Yes they do need cold stratification and popping them into a fridge would work.

We noticed a couple more have sprouted now so we must be doing something right!

cheers, steve

 

p.s.... they don't need chitting.

[SteveA]

Nut type seeds I've filled big glass jars in layers of seed and sharp sand. Punch small air holes in lid. Keep outside and moist. When you see the roots appear about this time of year pot on.

 

Don't let the roots get too far or you will damage them.

 

That's similar to how they do it commercially.... from the ground up in this order:

 

a) Soil

b) 4" layer of horticultural sand

c) Seeds

d) 4" to 6" of horticultural sand

 

The seeds send their roots through the bottom layer of sand and then tap into the soil.

 

I like your lid idea for preventing those pesky mice from nobbling them!

cheers, steve

[sandspider]

According to the FC http://www.forestry.gov.uk/pdf/fcpg018.pdf/$FILE/fcpg018.pdf sweet chestnuts are one of the few seeds that don't need stratification and will germinate without it. The seeds are recalcitrant.

Having said that, I suppose stratification might still help, especially as winter hasn't really been too cold this year. And that might be why Steve's have germinated and mine haven't yet!

[SteveA]

According to the FC http://www.forestry.gov.uk/pdf/fcpg018.pdf/$FILE/fcpg018.pdf sweet chestnuts are one of the few seeds that don't need stratification and will germinate without it. The seeds are recalcitrant.

Having said that, I suppose stratification might still help, especially as winter hasn't really been too cold this year. And that might be why Steve's have germinated and mine haven't yet!

 

That's interesting. Thanks for the pdf.

I wouldn't say we've been hugely successful yet...so far, this year, we have only sprouted 4 out of 30.... but it is early days so time will tell.

 

We've had a couple days of hard frost recently so will be interesting to find out if any more pop up.

cheers, steve

[sandspider]

No problem, I refer to it a lot!

 

We've had a few frosts down here, but just the odd one here and there really. My willow rods are shooting, and hyacinths in flower - but nothing from the sweet chestnuts. And my cherry seed pots blew away altogether!

[Goaty]

A lot of big tree seeds in my experience don't need a cold spell

 

Conkers, oaks of various kinds, beech etc.

 

As mentioned if it's fresh and gets its needs it often germinates before the onset of winter. However if seed doesn't get the moisture & growing media contact, it goes dormant.

 

Often I have found bought seed very poor for this reason, it's needs to be stored and becomes dormant and too dry. I buy trees from a nurseryman who grows a lot from seed, he always try's to collect his own fresh seed of the fickle species, due to this.

 

Walnuts try growing a shop bought one, it's dead from a seed viewpoint. They must be obtained with the green husk on. De husked. Then sown immediately.