All About Chestnuts: A Staple Crop from the Past for the Future

The American chestnut tree, Castanea dentata, once was prominent in the forests of the Eastern United States, as prevalent if not more than the oak tree. Unfortunately, nearly every single one of them fell victim to an imported pathogen, and in less than half a century, it was functionally extinct.

Technically, we can’t call the American chestnut extinct because the pathogen, Cryphonectria parasitica, can’t kill off the tree roots underground, so the roots of these chestnuts remain. They are even known to send up new shoots, but these young trees eventually succumb to the blight as well.

Before this tragedy, the chestnut had played a massive role in the American economy by providing construction material, silvopasture (integrated tree and livestock spaces), animal feed, and calorie-rich nuts for people. New chestnut lumber has been sold in the US for decades now, and the chestnuts we get for the holidays are often imported from Turkey or Italy.

As we push towards more sustainable lifestyles, it may be time to look at chestnuts again, reimagining how our food systems could look, from the farm to the table.

Source: Forest Service/Youtube

The American Chestnut

The American chestnut was a major part of Appalachia’s forest ecosystem. It was a canopy tree that to over 100 feet tall and 10 feet around. The chestnut grew fast and straight. There were areas of natural and cultivated (by Native Americans) forest where a quarter of the trees were chestnuts.

Its lumber was very workable and resisted root. Pioneers often chose it for building split-rail fences, log cabins, and wooden shingles. Later, telephone poles and railroad ties were made from chestnut. It also had the right stuff for making beautiful furniture and paneling. And the wood was also harvested to make lump charcoal, with the stump regenerating afterward.

This tree was also a reliable provider of food for wildlife, livestock, and humans. Deer, bears, turkeys, and squirrels all loved chestnuts. The nut crop was very dependable on chestnut trees, and the protein from the nuts had more protein than acorns and beechnuts. Humans relied on them for their dense nutrition.

American chestnut trees infected with chestnut blight were discovered in the New York Botanical Garden in the early 1900s. It caused cankers on the trees’ trunks and branches, which killed the above-ground portion of the tree. Trees would die within two years of infestation. The disease spreads by wind, rain, and bird. By the 1950s, they were gone from their natural range. The lumber remained useful and harvestable for a while, but the loss of this food source was horrible for wildlife.

Source: CBS Mornings/Youtube

Chestnut Cultivation in America Today

The American Chestnut Foundation and other organizations are trying to revitalize the American chestnut. The American Chestnut Foundation has projects trying to naturally breed resistance to the blight, to use biotechnology to molecularly impart resistance (GMO type stuff), and to introduce biological controls to fight the blight. In other places, American chestnuts are being used to create hybrids that are blight-resistance.

Meanwhile, the chestnuts that are cultivated in the United States today, less than one percent of the world’s production, are Asian varieties. Nowadays, Michigan, Florida, Oregon, Virginia, and California are the states with the most chestnuts. All other places where viable, i.e. warm temperate climates, chestnuts are a major crop. However, after the demise of the American chestnut, the industry has struggled to regain footing in the US.

Source: Justin Rhodes/Youtube

Looking to the Future with Chestnuts

The beauty of growing chestnuts is that they can begin to bear in three to five years, quicker than most fruit and nut trees, and they reach maturity at about ten years. Chestnuts are generally compatible with the environments where peaches grow. Innovative orchardists are working to grow them in mixed orchard settings with other perennial crops, like asparagus. These perennial trees not only put out hundreds of pounds of food each year, but they also produce for decades without replanting.

If we grow our bulk food in these types of perennial systems, the damaging ways of cultivating annual mono-crops like corn and soy can be minimized. Instead, we can grow edible forests and edible prairies, learning to once again eat those plants that grow well with little care but still produce abundantly.

But, that doesn’t mean we have to have meals of nothing but roasted chestnuts and steamed asparagus (a delicious-sounding combination!). Chestnuts can be used to make other natural products like chestnut flour and chestnut milk, which means pasta, desserts, sauces, and so on can be made with chestnuts as the prominent ingredient. We aren’t just eating wheat germ and soybeans, are we? It’s just a matter of opening up to a real change in the food system.

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