Growing nuts up North (cold resistant)

thanks for the great responses! I had hazels on my list and now i feel more confident in them.
I remember a neighbor in Halibut Cove told me they have a white oak, about 6 years since planting and about 7 feet tall that bore a few acorns last year. They said its not a bur oak, but i'm not sure what type exactly, i think they said 'colorado white oak'....
Kachemak bay is wetter than many areas to the north, but is in a rain shadow. Homer has an official average annual precipitation of around 24 inches, and Seldovia, which is nearer to the entrance of kachemak bay and thus closer to the gulf of Alaska, has an average of around 38 inches, i believe. I don't know of any reliable data for halibut cove, but I would guess its right in between those two (though this winter has been anomalously wet here as well as warm.)
I think our lovely mountains to the south are part of the kenai range, and just on the other side of them,not far away, on the gulf coast side, its much rainier (maybe 3-4x depending on location).

Roberto pokachinni wrote:Hi Tyler;

I actually don't know how much of our moderating effect is from the ocean and how much is from the Alaska Range. Where I live is actually a bit more mild and rainy than places a bit further south and closer to the ocean, and I think it has something to do with us being closer to the mountains.

It's both the Ocean and the Mountains. What happens is that the weather coming from the ocean is approaching the mountains, and is forced to climb the mountains. As it climbs, the air gets colder and condenses causing rain.

That makes a lot of sense.

Corey Schmidt wrote:I remember a neighbor in Halibut Cove told me they have a white oak, about 6 years since planting and about 7 feet tall that bore a few acorns last year. They said its not a bur oak, but i'm not sure what type exactly, i think they said 'colorado white oak'....
Kachemak bay is wetter than many areas to the north, but is in a rain shadow. Homer has an official average annual precipitation of around 24 inches, and Seldovia, which is nearer to the entrance of kachemak bay and thus closer to the gulf of Alaska, has an average of around 38 inches, i believe. I don't know of any reliable data for halibut cove, but I would guess its right in between those two (though this winter has been anomalously wet here as well as warm.

Huh, I always thought Kachemak Bay got more rain than that, but I haven't been there since elementary school. I remember it being a pretty nice place.

Do you think your neighbors would be interested in selling a few acorns?

[quote=Tyler Miller
Huh, I always thought Kachemak Bay got more rain than that, but I haven't been there since elementary school. I remember it being a pretty nice place.

Do you think your neighbors would be interested in selling a few acorns?


I bet my neighbors would give some acorns for free if they get any this year. I will ask and check on the type and source when I get a chance. I think they told me it is a small type, not a big tree. Also, i have read quercus macrocarpa does well in Anchorage.

quite often there are clouds over the mountains just to the south of me (about 2-3 miles away) and even often rain while it is clear across the bay in Homer (about 6 miles away), also it is often rainy and cloudy here while it is clear in Homer.. lots of microclimates here. I think also just a few more miles up the bay in Bear Cove winters can be much more severe due to topography allowing air coming overland from the north to move through.

Well, here's hoping for a bumper crop!

I'll have to look into quercus macrocarpa.

I've got a few beaked hazelnuts which have survived here in Fairbanks for several years, but they're still small and get covered by snow. I've got a bunch of Manchurian walnut seedlings that have survived a couple winters, but they're small too. I'll be planting more seeds in a week or two. I also have a few butternuts, one about five feet tall; they didn't sustain any damage this winter, which was mild, but have in the past. Time will tell how well they'll do long term. I've also got Siberian, Swiss, and Korean stone pines. The Koreans aren't as hardy; one died and three others get regular damage. The Swiss and Siberian do just fine, however. The biggest one I have is about six feet tall now, and grows at least a foot per year. Maybe I'll get some nuts from it before I kick the bucket.

Awesome about the pines! Victor, did you grow from seeds or buy plants, and did you need use any sort of innoculant? I have several pinus sibirica seeds in screened pots, waiting for them to sprout. Also this spring i planted several corylus americana and corylus avellana and all seem to be doing well here. I placed an order with Badgersett nursery in minnesota but I am waiting to hear back. they have an ongoing hazel hybridization program.

Corey, I bought some of the pines, and for the ones I got from Rhora's I bought their inoculant. A friend gave me about 30 Siberians that he germinated himself; I haven't inoculated those and they seem to be doing fine without it. I got seeds and seedlings from Badgersett last year; didn't get any germination (which may have been a vole issue; we had a real population explosion), and I forgot about the seedlings and they dried up before I transplanted them. I'm planning on trying them again. There are bearing stone pines at the university here; back in the '80s I got some seeds from those but didn't know much about stratification and got no germination. But they're plenty hardy, even in Fairbanks.

The hazelnuts I ordered from Badgersett showed up two days ago. Now I just need to figure out where I'm going to put them.


I still have my hazelnut and walnut seeds in the fridge. I'm so backup up on projects that I probably won't actually get to plant them until well into June.

I planted about 6 american hazels (corylus americana) and 2 european hazels corylus avellana 'mcdonald' this spring, as well as 3 chestnut trees (bouche de betizac)  all survived the summer and put on  growth, the corylus avellana thriving the best.  I have ordered 25 corylus avellana from lawyer's and 50 hybrid hazels from badgersett for next year, along with many others, including pinus koraiensis. I also ordered a gas powered earth auger to dig holes for all the trees so i can be ready when they all arrive.
I am curious how Tyler's hazel tubelings did this year.  I spoke with my neighbor with the oak tree.  She said its 10 years old and 7 feet tall and never had nuts and didnt this year.  Her son told me last year there were a few nuts though... I will ask him also when I see him.  I read the northernmost corylus avellana forest is near Stiegen in Norway, almost 68 degrees north.

Corey Schmidt wrote:I planted about 6 american hazels (corylus americana) and 2 european hazels corylus avellana 'mcdonald' this spring, as well as 3 chestnut trees (bouche de betizac)  all survived the summer and put on  growth, the corylus avellana thriving the best.  I have ordered 25 corylus avellana from lawyer's and 50 hybrid hazels from badgersett for next year, along with many others, including pinus koraiensis. I also ordered a gas powered earth auger to dig holes for all the trees so i can be ready when they all arrive.
I am curious how Tyler's hazel tubelings did this year.  I spoke with my neighbor with the oak tree.  She said its 10 years old and 7 feet tall and never had nuts and didnt this year.  Her son told me last year there were a few nuts though... I will ask him also when I see him.  I read the northernmost corylus avellana forest is near Stiegen in Norway, almost 68 degrees north.

I have hazel nut bushes... almost 10 years old and this is the first year we have had any nuts. Some of it may be my care (or lack there of) it seems my apple and pear trees have not been overly active till this year either, though they have both fruited in years gone by, this year there was enough fruit to break branches.

Victor - do you know what kind of stone pines produce at UAF?

I'm in Anchorage (the balmy part - Spenard) and have 4 hazelberts from ST Lawrence Nursery planted along the west facing side of a building.  They went in in 2009 and are now over 10 to 15 feet tall and spreading.  They have had male catkins for many years, and female flowers the last few years, but even this amazingly long warm summer no nut set at all.  Maybe someday, or maybe light or other things are big problems.  If nothing else, they are happy and healthy and produce long straight stems and big leaves - baskets, wood for rocket stoves and mulch I'd like to try Badgerset seedlings, but I'm almost out of room in my urban yard.

I also have a Korean pine planted in 2009.  It is a couple of feet high now, started out a few inches high.  I hear they produce better at elevation (something about humidity and such), so the coastal weather of Anchorage may not be conducive even if it ever gets big enough!

The university (UAA) has 30 foot tall burr oaks (also about 30 years old I think), and I went and checked this fall and saw no acorns at all.

I'd love any reports of any nuts produced on any trees in Alaska!

Hi Michelle. I've seen trees labeled as Swiss Stone Pines bearing cones there. Back in the '80s I tried to germinate some seeds I collected there, but no luck. I have Swiss, Siberian, and Korean pines at my house, but none producing yet; the largest is about seven feet tall now. The Koreans are only marginally hardy and some have died, but the Swiss and Siberian have been fully hardy. My Corylus trees are all still small. I just got some more this fall from http://www.nutcrackernursery.com/, and I also obtained some more Siberian stone pines and Manchurian walnut trees (which are nearly impossible to find--I see they're sold out right now) there.

There are bur oaks at UAF too, but just a couple feet tall. I have one too, but it's less than a foot tall. I just moved it so maybe it'll grow better.

I was researching pine nuts last night and found another zone 4 species with big nuts that i wasn't previously aware of-- pinus albicaulis
http://www.pfaf.org/User/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Pinus+albicaulis

lawyer nursery sells them also.

I discovered it on this document which tells how many seeds per pound for a variety of pines, the lower the number the bigger the seeds
http://forestry.wsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/PineNut_Sizes.pdf

I recently traveled to an area with a climate 3 zones warmer than my garden. I brought back about 70 pecan seeds with me from around a dozen trees. As soon as I got home, I threw them onto the snow in a perennial herb garden, and trampled them into the ground. My intention is to let them grow there for a few years, and screen for anything that survives the cold, then transplant them into an orchard. Perhaps nothing will survive. But the experiment only costs me a bit of labor.

Because I am planting from seeds, there is the possibility for variation in hardiness. It only takes a few successful trees to start a strain that can thrive on my farm.

I really abused the seedlings I got from Badgersett. I had them out where the wind was apparently whipping them around, so my mom moved them to where they were more sheltered. The sheltered place was the south side of the house, where they cooked once the wind died down. So about half of them lost all of their leaves and looked pretty dead right off the bat. Whoops.

I also kept them in the tubes too long, and eventually just transplanted them to pots. I have a real problem with not being able to decide where to put things, when really I should just be sticking them in the ground and worrying about it later. It's a personal failing that I'm trying to work on.

The Korean pines germinated pretty well, as did the Butternuts. I only got four beaked hazelnuts to germinate, and none of the Manchurian hazelnuts germinated.

I didn't get any of the Dwarf Siberian pines to germinate, which is a bummer because I'm really interested in them. I tried looking up the price of seedlings and all I could find were potted trees for $15-$30 each, which is pretty spendy when I'm looking to use them for hedges.

Found this awesome nursery in Quebec the other day, looking for productive trees to grow in 2a/2b.  Some of these varieties grow in Alaska.  The site is great as it lists the hardiness zones for most plants:

http://www.hardyfruittrees.ca/catalog

I was surprised how many fruit and nuts might survive up there, and made a list of the ones I will try, some will have to be babied for the winter.  A friend says they've seen hazelnuts thriving in the same area.  Have to use that bone sauce to keep them intact!

_________________________

APPLES
Norkent apple tree - Zone 2
Parkland - Zone 2a
Fall Red - Zone 2
Minnesota 1734 apple - Zone 2
922-End Apple Tree - Zone 1
Fort Mac Mac Apple Tree - Zone 1

NUTS
Korean Pine - Pinus koraiensis – Zone 2
Beaked Hazel - Corylus Cornuta – Zone 2

PEAR
Pollinator of Ure – Zone 2, tiny fruit
Larinskaya Pear Tree – Try in Zone 2b?
Ure – Try in Zone 2b, grow in Manitoba

PLUM
Fofonoff plum tree - Zone 2
Pembina Plum Tree - Plums for the North in Zone 2
Brookgold Plum Tree - Zone 2

CHERRY
Choke cherry
Maskinonge Cherry Tree
Garrington Chokecherry

BERRIES
Serviceberry
Hawthorn
Wild Blueberry
Blackberries

GRAPES
Prairie Star Grape Vine (good to -40 with cover)
Kay Gray Grape Vine (good to -42 with cover)
Valiant Grape (2b with winter cover)

Tyler Miller wrote:I really abused the seedlings I got from Badgersett. I had them out where the wind was apparently whipping them around, so my mom moved them to where they were more sheltered. The sheltered place was the south side of the house, where they cooked once the wind died down. So about half of them lost all of their leaves and looked pretty dead right off the bat. Whoops.

I also kept them in the tubes too long, and eventually just transplanted them to pots. I have a real problem with not being able to decide where to put things, when really I should just be sticking them in the ground and worrying about it later. It's a personal failing that I'm trying to work on.

The Korean pines germinated pretty well, as did the Butternuts. I only got four beaked hazelnuts to germinate, and none of the Manchurian hazelnuts germinated.

I didn't get any of the Dwarf Siberian pines to germinate, which is a bummer because I'm really interested in them. I tried looking up the price of seedlings and all I could find were potted trees for $15-$30 each, which is pretty spendy when I'm looking to use them for hedges.

Tyler, try http://www.nutcrackernursery.com/nut-trees.php . I got some Siberian stone pines from them last year; they're small but $6 each with discounts increasing with quantity. They're not the dwarfs, though. I also bought Siberian and beaked hazelnut and Manchurian walnut trees (which are out of stock now). Prices were good and I had no problems with their service. I ordered them too late to plant out, since the ground had frozen, but I buried them in a pile of leaf mold and will do it in spring.

Hi, all -

Chiming in here to recommend Burnt Ridge Nursery www.burntridgenursery.com  
I've been working there for the last year, and am very impressed with how wide-ranging the plant (especially nut) varieties are. Michael Dolan is the owner, and he does most of the grafting and planting of seedlings himself. He sells seedling nuts by the pound, to allow growers to start their own. Seedlings can take a really long time to come into production - 6-8 years for hazelnuts, 8-12 for chestnuts/walnuts and up to 30-35 years for many oaks, stone pines and monkey puzzle. Buying grafted trees can help, as that doubles the precocity and halves the time to bearing - and usually he grafts varieties to their own seedlings as rootstocks, to avoid delayed graft rejection.

Hazelnuts are certainly hardy to zone 3, and possibly 2 with protection. OSU has developed seriously blight-resistant varieties in the last 5 years like Jefferson, Eta, Theta, York, Yamhill, Felix and Dorris. Jefferson has a hugely long bloom time, so you can get some pollenizers for its early phase, and some for the later phase.

Frankly, it's hard to find nut varieties that will tolerate zone 2 conditions. We carry a few apples from Minnesota and Canadian breeding programs, like Goodland, Heartland, etc. Quince, Seaberry, Hardy Kiwi, Haskap (Honeyberry) - all have Ukranian, Siberian or Canadian origins. Check the website or order a catalog - Michael is always finding odd and unusual things to add to our offerings, and he tends to focus on short season/low summer heat varieties - since that means we can grow them and propagate them ourselves.

I can vouch for the quality of bare root products that go out our doors, too - I've helped in the coolers, and helped packing boxes as well, although usually you'll find me taking orders by phone or working selling our larger potted stock at the Olympia Farmers Market. The roots are good, trunks are sound, grafts are strong, and as long as you soak them for a few hours after you unpack them, you'll be good to go. Geez, I sound like an advertisement - but I do love my job!

We do ship to Alaska, but shipping prices are crazy expensive. Sorry  That's the post office, not us. We don't ship outside the US.

I wonder whether seeds like sunflower or pumpkin, that could be eaten for protein and fat and pressed for oil, might be the better choice for your region? Just a thought.

Thanks, I'll check them out.

I ordered from Burnt ridge last year and was very satisfied with the plants.  Some of them arrived dead and never leafed out, but they are sending me free replacements with my order this year.  Amonth other things I ordered korean nut pines from them this year, $4 each, they may still have that offer.   I got chestnuts from them last year, small one year seedlings of bouche de betizac hybrid and 3 of the 4 i got survived the summer (i think the 4th died due to abuse) and had some nice leaf growth in pots.  I'm interested to see how they do, but I don't have too high hopes of actually getting nuts from them with our cool summers, but there is only one way to find out.  I also got a couple of mcdonald hazelnuts from them and they did great, one in a pot and the other in medium quality soil.  That soil had some  disease (i think) which killed some other things but the hazelnut plant did just as well there as the other one i planted in a commercial potting mix.  I have high hopes for the hazelnuts...I got aronia plants from burnt ridge last year and also from an eastern US source, and the burnt ridge ones seemed to be more vigorous... I tried also some actinidia kolomikta kiwi from them and some i got succumbed to disease but I planted 2 vines(male and female) in a commercial potting mix (alaska earth) and the female actually had a few fruits last summer, very tasty, and lots of growth as well, very vigorous. the disease problem may have been due to growing potatos in that spot previously, but i'm not sure... I definitely recommend burnt ridge nursery and its great fun to read their offerings on their website, as there seem to be a lot of things that might do well here in AK, and a lot of interesting edibles.

Hey, Corey, great to hear your feedback.

I'm heartened to hear about your success with the actinidia kolomikta - are they in pots, in a cool greenhouse, or in the ground? How many years did you wait before they fruited? I hear they can be somewhat less aggressively large than the actinidia arguta hardy kiwi, but if they can grow and fruit in zone 2, who cares how big they grow!

Well I'm in zone 6 actually, but its still a cool summer subarctic climate. (look under my name at left or read wikipedia article on homer ak, i think there is climate info there)  I don't know how old the vines were to begin with at the nursery but the one i planted in a pot in alaska earth potting mix (a commercial mix) made about 5 delicious little fruits last year- the first year i had them.  the pots were outdoors near the south wall of a house on a north facing slope and got about half day sun, a decent position but not the best, because shade all morning and evening.

Corey Schmidt wrote:Well I'm in zone 6 actually, but its still a cool summer subarctic climate. (look under my name at left or read wikipedia article on homer ak, i think there is climate info there)  I don't know how old the vines were to begin with at the nursery but the one i planted in a pot in alaska earth potting mix (a commercial mix) made about 5 delicious little fruits last year- the first year i had them.  the pots were outdoors near the south wall of a house on a north facing slope and got about half day sun, a decent position but not the best, because shade all morning and evening.

I've got kolomiktas here in Fairbanks. They've survived since the '80s and are pretty rampant now, with trunks a couple inches in diameter. They bloom every year, but I never get fruit because I don't have any males. I haven't found a male yet that's hardy enough, but the females do pretty well, although ther will be some dieback in severe winters. I need to find a hardy male and I'll be in business.

Your best bet for nuts above zone 3 will always be conifers. All spruce, fir and pine species have edible seeds. Many of them are just more work than they may be worth to remove. Another problem is that once out of their cones they don't have a long shelf life even when roasted.  Best bet is to freeze them after removing. The other more labor and space intensive path is to store large quantities of cones and break just enough out to eat over a couple days. In my youth on backpacking trips we would collect lots of cones on the hike and break em out at camp so we didn't have to carry as much food. Berries and fish would round it out.

Another note on Corey's post about the Whitebark pine. They are GREAT eating! High fat and protein content.  They are a large part of Grizzly fall fattening diet in the northern Rockies.  There is a major problem with them right now though.  In the last five years or so an invasive fungus has been killing them off at rapid speed in their native range here.  They may still be viable up in Alaska if the fungus hasn't made its way there, but they may not last long enough to start producing.

Excitingly, it looks like I may have finally gotten some nut set on my hazelberts in Anchorage, AK!  Now let's see if they ripen...

Michelle Wilber wrote:Excitingly, it looks like I may have finally gotten some nut set on my hazelberts in Anchorage, AK!  Now let's see if they ripen...

Great news!  Please keep us posted on how they ripen.
I have a 'mcdonald' hazelnut (corylus avellana) in my garden, planted I think 3 years ago that's growing like an alder (almost) but I just planted a pollenizer for it (yamhill seedling)  so I will have to wait a while for nut potential....  I think I have around 15 surviving european hazelnuts spread around, mostly seedlings of Jefferson, that survived at least 1 winter. and 4 american hazelnuts have survived a few years but are still tiny.  Also i had about 6 butternuts (juglans cinerea) survive a winter as well as 5 out of 5 planted quercus macrocarpa x robur (burrenglish oaks).  Also I planted I think around 40 korean nut pines last year and all but a few are growing well this summer (still very small, though.)

That's awesome, Corey!  Hope to hear about successes from your nuts soon!  I think I mentioned earlier, but my Hazelberts are from St. Lawrence Nursery, 4 of them, but only one has nut set (a handful of clusters of 3 nuts each, currently about as big as my finger tip.).  They are about 9 years in the ground and about 15 feet tall.  They are on the west side of a building in sunny Spenard (a little bit of a nicer microclime than general Anchorage), mostly in a row although one (not the one with nuts) is a few feet (10ish?) from the others.  I'm super excited!

Corey Schmidt wrote:

Michelle Wilber wrote:Excitingly, it looks like I may have finally gotten some nut set on my hazelberts in Anchorage, AK!  Now let's see if they ripen...

Great news!  Please keep us posted on how they ripen.
I have a 'mcdonald' hazelnut (corylus avellana) in my garden, planted I think 3 years ago that's growing like an alder (almost) but I just planted a pollenizer for it (yamhill seedling)  so I will have to wait a while for nut potential....  I think I have around 15 surviving european hazelnuts spread around, mostly seedlings of Jefferson, that survived at least 1 winter. and 4 american hazelnuts have survived a few years but are still tiny.  Also i had about 6 butternuts (juglans cinerea) survive a winter as well as 5 out of 5 planted quercus macrocarpa x robur (burrenglish oaks).  Also I planted I think around 40 korean nut pines last year and all but a few are growing well this summer (still very small, though.)

Corey on your Korean pines... Did you inoculate the soil with a bolete mushroom species? The white pines really need that symbiotic relationship to thrive.

Nick Kitchener wrote:

Corey on your Korean pines... Did you inoculate the soil with a bolete mushroom species? The white pines really need that symbiotic relationship to thrive.

Hi Nick, no I did not.  We have a bolete species in the area... any suggestions on how to do that innoculation?   I got the KNP as little plugs last year.  Mostly they grew a few inches.  Same again this year, with a few exceptions that grew very little and a few that are about 10 inches tall now.

Corey Schmidt wrote:

Nick Kitchener wrote:

Corey on your Korean pines... Did you inoculate the soil with a bolete mushroom species? The white pines really need that symbiotic relationship to thrive.

Hi Nick, no I did not.  We have a bolete species in the area... any suggestions on how to do that innoculation?   I got the KNP as little plugs last year.  Mostly they grew a few inches.  Same again this year, with a few exceptions that grew very little and a few that are about 10 inches tall now.

Normally the recommendation is to transplant soil from underneath a mature white pine in the hope the mycelium is there. I'm growing Siberian pines from seed this year and in the fall I will be picking the boletes and making a slurry from them in a blender with water. According to the mushroom forums I've read, doing this will capture the spores into the water, and then you can inoculate the area by watering around the plants.

I also have a korean pine.  We don't have white pines here, but I did take some soil from under domestic pines of some sort and spread around, as well as adding some general purpose mycorrhizal innoculant a year or so after planting to the root zone.  I do collect boletes to eat and they are in the neighborhood but not in my yard, I will slurry and add that too.  The pine started a few inches tall and 9 years later is finally 4' or so, growing about 6" a year maybe at this point.  It is deep in a food forest overshadowed by spruce and wild rose and domestic mtn ash and bush cherry.  It seems happy with this for now.  I suspect in 30 years all its neighbors will be overshadowed and thus moved or unhappy  Maybe by then I'll get some nuts.  I have heard it likes something about the humidity control of being at elevation though, and I am near the ocean, so maybe not.

Also, I only have one korean nut pine, so not sure what the polination requirements are (I'm sure I researched that when I got it and thought I had hope of nuts, but maybe I was wrong, and even with self-fertile things I've had way better luck once I put an appropriate pollinator in the yard - non-surprisingly.  No room for another big pine though!

I know this is an old thread but I couldn't find a new thread with the same topic. Does anyone have a quick update on how things went this last year? I am looking into nuts for my little area. I live in south central Alaska zone 4. I am hoping to get hazelnuts, butternuts, and maybe black walnuts going this coming spring.

Sadly, even though I harvested about 17 nuts from my hazleberts in Anchorage last fall, they all turned out to be completely empty shells.  Baby steps!  At least they made shells this year.

I got actual hazelnuts in Anchorage, Alaska this year!  18 of 22 shells had nuts inside...woohoo!!! So exciting

Excellent news Michelle! That is VERY EXCITING!!! somehow I only now saw your post.

I have a 'Mcdonald' European Hazelnut (corylus avellana) planted probably 4 years ago, about 2-3 feet tall at the time that is now about 8 feet tall and was loaded with catkins and a few female flowers this year.  Unfortunately the pollenizer I planted was shaded and failed to thrive so I'm going to move it and replace it with another larger one from elsewhere.   I still have 'burrenglish' oaks (macrocarpa x robur), still tiny, lots of korean nut pines alive,  but also growing very slowly (average about 3"/ year so far) and a few butternuts alive and growing about 6 to 9 inches per year.  I have a few catkins on european hazelnuts planted in other gardens also, including one that I planted only last year with a couple of catkins on it.  Here are some pictures of my McDonald.  You can see coffee filters around its base, probably why its so happy- its right outside the door and gets coffee grounds and pee a lot.

I've had great success from badgerset's hazelnuts and have been wondering how the chestnut program has developed.  Are you getting any size with your nuts?

i have yet to harvest any nuts from my trees here.   I placed an order with Badgersett several years ago and paid them about $400, and never got any trees from them.  I tried to contact them over and over again and once got a response with excuses and promises, but never any trees.   I have read that this happened to other people also, so I'm glad you actually got plants from them.

Update on this--I have been getting kiwi fruit the past three seasons in Fairbanks. The male cultivar "Pasha" has survived our winters well and managed to reach puberty. The fruit set is low, probably because the vines have never been managed for production, so I'm hoping to improve that with some appropriate culture. Ripening hasn't been a problem, and the fruit is sweet, juicy, tender, and flavorful.

Victor Johanson wrote:

Corey Schmidt wrote:Well I'm in zone 6 actually, but its still a cool summer subarctic climate. (look under my name at left or read wikipedia article on homer ak, i think there is climate info there)  I don't know how old the vines were to begin with at the nursery but the one i planted in a pot in alaska earth potting mix (a commercial mix) made about 5 delicious little fruits last year- the first year i had them.  the pots were outdoors near the south wall of a house on a north facing slope and got about half day sun, a decent position but not the best, because shade all morning and evening.

I've got kolomiktas here in Fairbanks. They've survived since the '80s and are pretty rampant now, with trunks a couple inches in diameter. They bloom every year, but I never get fruit because I don't have any males. I haven't found a male yet that's hardy enough, but the females do pretty well, although ther will be some dieback in severe winters. I need to find a hardy male and I'll be in business.