Grafting Chestnut to Oak - Northern Red Oak inspired by Sober Paragon Chestnuts

Four years ago, in my first year of grafting I did two big experiments, other than the accidental experiment of Asian pear on Toringo Apple, which apparently won’t accept apple grafts, and typical learning process, and this one was chestnut grafting! I only had cuttings from a European x Japanese and a Dunstan to play with, and both of those have European genes like the Sober Paragon Chestnut were, Italian Chestnuts, I believe; anyway I first tried grafting them to beech, but without any success, then in the early summer when the Northern Red Oaks were waking up, I started grafting after basically all my other grafting was done. And I got some great initial success at least, many grafts took, and most survived through the next summer, although I’ve got to check on them to see if they made it to the four year mark, if so it’s pretty safe to say it’s a sucess, but that is still uncertain, and honestly not sounding good from my father’s initial report, maybe he just can’t find them; we’ll know soon.

In reading about Chestnut grating I ran across the rumors of C. K. Sober and the Paragon Chestnut and while he kept his grafting a secret, it was rumored that he was grafting to Red Oak or Scarlet Oak, I tried Northern Red Oak, living in the North I didn’t know that the “Northern” belonged on the name and always heard it simply called Red Oak, so if these don’t live long term the rumor still requires someone to test Southern Red Oak and Scarlett Oak, which I might next year, but let’s hope at least one of my three or four that were sizeable after a season and a half of growth are still alive in their fourth growing season, I’ll let to know soon.

The first three pictures here are all the same one, there years ago, four years ago after the graft took and three years and some after I cut off the original oak tree in the spring. After pinching the tips of any lower forks it made, it was almost 4 feet tall in mid July of it’s second year, it was great onto a nearly 2” diameter Oak, but that was only cut off after the first complete growing season.


These others were whip and tongue on similar sized seedlings for the most part, and low to the ground with the intention of burying the graft union, which I think I didn’t get around to before leaving, perhaps I did bury one, I certainly remember burying the Wolf River on Bud 9, which I somehow didn’t think to plant deep from the get-go, and I might have buried one chestnut, hopefully two.


I had quickly gathered and stopped my scions and sadly forgot which was which so I was making them red or black for a while and if I remember almost only the red survived, so there might be compatibility issues with either Dunstan or the European x Japanese. It should be easy to identify if they’re still growing when I get back home in a month or so.

I’m looking forward to my orchard and to any good news that I can give you guys!