Chestnut advice

I planted 4 chinese/american hybrid chestnut trees in our yard probably 5 years ago now. They were supposedly “blight resistant” but resistant and immune are not the same.

They have been growing consistently, but not well. They leaf our very late, send up new branches but have some deformed leaves and then half of the branches die off every year. So, although they are “growing” a lot of the growth dies off. Its like 2 steps forward 1 step back. And they arent growing like a nice straight single trunk tree, they’re growing like a struggling shrub.

After wondering for years what the problem was, I have decided its most likely blight. The stem gets discolored patches that turn sort of rusty colored and then the branch dies from that point onward. If you scrape the bark away at the discoloration there is decay underneath.

Should I just put these things out of their misery? Id hate to have 4 ugly unproductive struggling trees for years just so they can eventually die.

Also, assuming it is blight, it is probably in the surrounding soil now right? So if I replant another “resistant” variety of chestnut it will undoubtedly be exposed to the same blight correct?

Not sure if this makes a difference but my location is Michigans upper peninsula near the Wisconsin border.

Thankfully blight hasn't made it here yet.  

But sometimes we get issues with fruit and nut trees looking sick, but it's a soil problem. Too much or not enough...drainage, water, minerals, nutrients, critters eating roots, toxins from up hill neighbours.

Sometimes we can fix on location like adding lime or manuer, and other times relocating the tree does the trick (kill or cure).  

...

Could you tell us more about the soil?  Hopefully someone familiar with your climate can chime in with ideas.

I don’t have a lot of advice, but check your soil PH. It should be between 4.5 and 6 for chestnut trees. Also, it might be your grow zone. What I can find says zone 4 to 9, but you do say what you have is a hybrid.
I would take a good large soil sample and send it to a lab and get it tested. It’s usually about 50$ and it’s worth it. I do it when I run into problems. They will check the ph and your soil quality, and get back to you with advice on how to fix it, if anything needs fixing.
One more thing though, sometimes it just don’t work. I have had to replace trees because I just couldn’t get them to grow right.
Right now we have an apple tree to cut down. I have given it 8 years, and while it flowers we don’t get any apples. Instead we are planting a cherry tree.

r ranson wrote:Thankfully blight hasn't made it here yet.  

But sometimes we get issues with fruit and nut trees looking sick, but it's a soil problem. Too much or not enough...drainage, water, minerals, nutrients, critters eating roots, toxins from up hill neighbours.

Sometimes we can fix on location like adding lime or manuer, and other times relocating the tree does the trick (kill or cure).  

...

Could you tell us more about the soil?  Hopefully someone familiar with your climate can chime in with ideas.

Well, when I first saw they were struggling I blamed the soil and my planting. Chestnuts supposedly prefer sandier soil and to be planted a bit above grade, but we have more of a clay soil and if anything, they sit a bit below grade. I thought about digging them up the next year and planting them better, with more sand and higher up but they grew quite a bit so I left them. Then the growth died back and started this pattern. And now that I looked into chestnut blight, it is exactly the symptoms that these trees have.

Maybe with better planting they would have been healthier, but im guessing they would have been exposed to blight regardless.

Ulla Bisgaard wrote:I don’t have a lot of advice, but check your soil PH. It should be between 4.5 and 6 for chestnut trees. Also, it might be your grow zone. What I can find says zone 4 to 9, but you do say what you have is a hybrid.
I would take a good large soil sample and send it to a lab and get it tested. It’s usually about 50$ and it’s worth it. I do it when I run into problems. They will check the ph and your soil quality, and get back to you with advice on how to fix it, if anything needs fixing.
One more thing though, sometimes it just don’t work. I have had to replace trees because I just couldn’t get them to grow right.
Right now we have an apple tree to cut down. I have given it 8 years, and while it flowers we don’t get any apples. Instead we are planting a cherry tree.

I did get our soil tested years ago, and probably could dig up the results. If I remember right, it was slightly acidic but close to neutral. I think even if i made a bunch of changes to the soil now, they are infected with blight and will either struggle to live with it or die because of it.

I didn't know they like sandy soil.

The best chestnut trees locally grow on the damp edge of clearrings in near young Douglas fir forest so we planted ours there.  

we have quite a few hybrid chestnuts planted in pure southern red clay that seem to be doing just fine aside from deer browse issues. they are around the crown of a hill, so (lack of) drainage doesn’t seem to be as much of a big deal as it could be.

i'd agree with greg, we have very heavy orange and red clay and they do quite well here. We have a lot of Italian immigration here and some of the trees that were planted when the first settlers arrived are still going very strong.

If the choice comes down to cull or not cull, try transplant with STUN (extreme neglect). Let the tree make the decision. If it's too sick, it wll die.  If not, it will thrive.  

greg mosser wrote:we have quite a few hybrid chestnuts planted in pure southern red clay that seem to be doing just fine aside from deer browse issues. they are around the crown of a hill, so (lack of) drainage doesn’t seem to be as much of a big deal as it could be.

Well, maybe it is less my planting and more just lack of blight resistant that my issue is.

r ranson wrote:If the choice comes down to cull or not cull, try transplant with STUN (extreme neglect). Let the tree make the decision. If it's too sick, it wll die.  If not, it will thrive.  

Are you saying to neglect these sick trees, or replant with new trees and neglect them? Im pretty good at neglecting things! All I do to these trees is water occasionally if it hasnt rained for a month and hack the comfrey back from near their trunk a couple times a summer.

Transplant the tree with care, wide hole, maybe give it some water and a bit of nice soil, that sort of thing.  then come back next spring and see if it made it.

r ranson wrote:Transplant the tree with care, wide hole, maybe give it some water and a bit of nice soil, that sort of thing.  then come back next spring and see if it made it.

I should check to see what kind it is first. Its from a local conservation organization so probably is a pure american chestnut with zero blight resistance, and if thats the case I could see it being a waste of my time to transplant it since these spots are certainly already carrying the fungus.